ABSTRACT

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores meaning and spirituality in sport and their significance for a range of related topics from motivation and play to injury and ageing. It shows that psychological research in sport could draw on the work done in various other disciplines including vocational psychology, gerontology, health psychology and physical education to address these topics that traditionally have been neglected due to an over-emphasis on performance enhancement. The book presents a psychological perspective on spirituality not tied to any particular religious framework. It aims to readers regardless of their religious/spiritual/secular beliefs and to stimulate further research to meaning and spirituality from diverse perspectives. The book explores some of theoretical approaches, including humanistic, existential, phenomenological and narrative psychology, but there are also other perspectives that may provide researchers with coherent frameworks to conceptualize and study these constructs.