ABSTRACT
It is well established that athletes can be exposed to verbal and mental abuse from their coaches, which can include behaviours such as belittling, humiliation, and emotional maltreatment. Moreover, literature examining athlete mistreatment illustrates a contention between definitions and perceptions of psychological abuse in sport broadly and amongst athletes specifically. This chapter explores competitive and high-performance women’s volleyball coaches’ perceptions of psychological abuse and how the culture of high-performance volleyball may contribute to experiences of psychological harm. These coach insights are used to define psychological abuse in order to discuss ways that the Canadian sport context might address the potential negative consequences of psychological abuse on athlete welfare.
