ABSTRACT
Consultancy, coaching, and all kinds of professional psychological interventions (the term is used as a superordinate term/category for various kinds of measures and methods like counselling, training, and modification programs) are based on intentional organized behaviour, which means actions in a specific, tangible action situation. Even though such actions are conscious and rational, to a large extent action regulation is influenced essentially by affective processes and run in some parts by developed experience. For a report on personal experiences and to uncover strategic and operational directions for professional engagement in professional sports, this has to be kept in mind. In the preparation and development of this contribution, I took the occasion of thinking about some most relevant strategies and methods I used in recent years when working in professional sports with professional performers, especially drivers in car racing, to bring it to the attention of the reader. In doing so it became very obvious that the practical measures of its selection or elaboration are largely based on (hopefully sound) theoretical reasoning, which the reader should also be aware to learn about. In front of the development of strategies and conceptual knowledge, there are influences which originate from the personal career in the action field – in my case the two fundamental action fields are sports and science – and specifically with respect to science, psychology, and sport science, the two parent disciplines of sport psychology (no matter who is the father and who is the mother) from my point of view.
