ABSTRACT
Of all professional psychologists, almost certainly those who have made the greatest contribution to applied sport psychology have been clinical psychologists. Over the years, a great many clinical psychologists have found that their professional skills have transferred easily to the world of sport. Some would argue that a distinction can and should be made between different types of clinical intervention in sport, on the one hand those who deal with serious behavioural and emotional problems amongst athletes and on the other hand those who offer advice and teach mental skills but who do not see themselves primarily as clinicians (Morris and Bull, 1991). On occasion, the latter have been categorized as educational sport psychologists (LaRose, 1988) but in practice the distinction between forms of intervention is not an easy one to make. For example, at what stage does an athlete’s problem with self-belief or attention become classified as a clinical abnormality? Given that all intervention programmes are designed to effect changes and to resolve psychological problems, however trivial these may be, then within this chapter an array of interventions will be subsumed under the broad umbrella of clinical psychology.
