ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses how a new approach to sport psychology can provide a way to reconcile the performance versus welfare debate. I consider how my applied work over many years with high-level professional athletes and coaches has convinced me that the welfare-performance dichotomy is largely false in practice, and that it is based on a narrow positivist psychology and philosophical materialism. To counter this view, I will draw on Catholic perspectives contained in the work of Pieper and Schall. These authors provide a non-dualistic account of the human person whereby we are defined as beings made up of mind, body and soul, whose final end is eternal life. I will argue that such a view of the person has profound implications for psychology and therefore sport psychology, and that without this understanding and acceptance, psychology will continue to be less effective than it could be, especially for Christian athletes and coaches. “The closest ordinary people come to understanding what is meant by contemplation comes from this experience of being outside of themselves in following a game” (Schall, 2013: 86).