#269 Dr Paul Mansell & Dr Katie Sparks - Performing Under Pressure

I’m delighted to speak with Katie Crawford this week. Katie and I discuss how coaches can facilitate teamwork within their teams.  

Katie is a PhD student at the University of Bath. As part of Katie’s PhD research, she led a paper entitled “Coaching teamwork: Team sport athletes’ and coaches’ perceptions of how coaches facilitate teamwork” along with Dr Rachel Arnold, Carly McKay and Dr Desmond McEwan. The study explored how team sport coaches might facilitate teamwork within their teams. The study was based on interviews with coaches and athletes and identified how coaches utilize the following factors to promote teamwork: team selection, roles, coach-athlete relationships, athlete-to-athlete support, favouritism, tactical systems, athlete leadership, and internal competition.

I’m delighted to speak with Josh Frost this week. Josh is a PhD research student at The University of Melbourne. His research is also affiliated with the Elite Sports and Mental Health Centre at Orygen, a not-for-profit Youth Mental Health Centre located in Melbourne. The centre conducts research with athletes, coaches and high-performance support staff to find ways to better support elite athletes.

In this episode Josh and I discuss a paper he led entitled “The Mental Health of Elite-Level Coaches: A Systematic Scoping Review” which examined the current body of evidence to explore what is known about the mental health of elite-level coaches (i.e. wellbeing and mental ill-health), the risk and protective factors that influence coach mental health, and the relationship between mental health and coaching effectiveness.

I’m delighted to speak with Karin Hägglund this week. Karin is a Former Swedish National team coach and National team athlete in karate. She is a five-time Swedish champion and three-time Nordic karate champion. Karin now researches how we can maintain well-being and health while performing at a high level over time. She is a PhD-student in Sustainable High-performance Coaching at The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences.

Karin is former editor and writer for the magazine FLOW published by the Swedish Sports Psychology Association and was a board member of the Swedish Sports Psychology Association.

Karin and I discuss a paper she led entitled “Starting a Conversation about Vulnerability in Elite Sport”. The paper provides practitioners with resources based on insights from high-performance coaches to enable conversations about vulnerability in sport. The aim is that practitioners will use these resources to stimulate reflection and dialogue about vulnerability, which may lower thresholds for help-seeking and foster sustainability in sport organisations.

I’m delighted to speak with Jen Harris this week. Jen is an expert in the field of parenting in youth sport. As the mother of a child athlete Jen was struck how little help there is for parents and decided to help change this. She undertook a Masters degree in Sport Psychology, the focus of which was parenting in youth sport. For her dissertation she created the Super-P Approach; an easy to teach parental communication style which can significantly reduce worry levels in child athletes. Jen is now completing her PhD at The University of Edinburgh to extend the research into her Super-P Approach.

Jen has also launched a business, Raising Happy Champs, which offers workshops and an extensive e-learning program to parents of children involved in competitive sport. Jen teaches parents sport psychology principals and how to apply them to improve their child’s experience of sport.

In this episode we speak about Jen’s experiences as a sport parent and we discuss the results of a study Jen undertook along with Prof Dave Collins and Dr Christine Nash entitled “Let’s Hear It From the Kids! Examining the Experiences, Views, and Needs of Highly Committed Children Involved in Youth Sport”.

In this episode I’m delighted to speak with Dr Paul Mansell and Dr Katie Sparks.

Paul is a lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Staffordshire University. Paul completed his PhD in 2023 at the University of Birmingham which investigated the role of trait beliefs in determining stress appraisals, performance and well-being. Paul continues to research in this area, with a specific focus on stress mindset and irrational beliefs. Specifically, Paul has constructed an intervention informed by the REBT framework to enhance well-being and performance under pressure.

Katie is a Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Staffordshire University and is currently undertaking her PhD at University of Birmingham. Katie is also a mindfulness practitioner. She previously worked with British Rowing as a Performance Lifestyle Advisor and ran psychology educational workshops within their talent development pathway.

Paul and Katie discuss the findings of a study that investigated whether a multimodal cognitive-behavioural intervention could enhance young athletes’ psychological well-being and performance. The intervention employed a combination of education and reappraisal delivered in 6 × 1-hour group workshops. Content included stress mindset, irrational beliefs, self-compassion, and imagery. They found that teaching athletes simple cognitive behavioural techniques can change their ‘stress mindset’ and, in turn, enhance their wellbeing and performance.

I’m delighted to speak with Ben Freakley this week. Ben is a highly skilled and experienced sport psychology professional, helping athletes, coaches, and teams to achieve peak performance and reach their goals. Ben is also the founder of Ready.Set.Resilient.

Ben has coached individuals, athletes, teams, soldiers, and businesses on the psychology of performance, leadership, team dynamics, and well-being for nearly 20 years. Along the way, Ben has been a NCAA Division I men’s soccer coach, mental performance coach for special operations forces, Head of Mental Performance for the Toronto Blue Jays and he now works in the MLS and USL.

Ben holds master’s degrees in Sport Psychology and Sport Management from Georgia Southern University where he was an NCAA Division I athlete. He has a doctoral degree in Sport and Performance Psychology with an emphasis in Clinical Mental Health Counselling. Ben is a Certified Mental Performance Coach (CMPC) and member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). 

I talk to Ben about his experiences as both a coach and a sport psychology professional and we discuss the factors inherent in high performance coaching environments. 

I’m delighted to speak with Matthew Layton this week. Matt is head of youth development phase at Swansea City Football Club. He manages the multidisciplinary staff departments and the players within the youth development phase to support and coordinate their pathway throughout the programme into the professional development phase.

Matt and I discuss a brilliant paper he co-wrote with Dr Jamie Taylor and Prof Dave Collins about the measurement, tracking and development practices of academies. The paper is available here https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02640414.2023.2289758 

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Sam Thrower this week. Sam is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Oxford Brookes University. His main research interests lie in the area of youth sport and specifically the psychosocial development of young athletes. He is particularly interested in topics such as parenting in sport, sport-confidence, motivational climates, stress and coping, and anti-doping in sport. Sam’s research in these areas has been published in a range of leading international journals including: ‘Psychology of Sport & Exercise’, ‘Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health’, ‘Sport, Exercise & Performance Psychology’, ‘Journal of Applied Sport Psychology’ and 'Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology'. His current research focuses on parent-child interactions and the development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based sport parent education programmes.

In this episode we discuss a paper Sam led about enhancing wellbeing, long-term development, and performance in youth sport.

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Shakiba Moghadam this week. Shakiba is a chartered psychologist with a specific focus on community psychology, as well as sport and exercise psychology. Shakiba currently lectures in psychology and Sport and Exercise psychology at Solent University.  

Shakiba graduated with a first-class honours degree in BSc Psychology from the University of Portsmouth and completed her MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Portsmouth.

Shakiba’s research predominantly focuses on mental health literacy and athlete mental health, experiences of women athletes in male dominated sports, human rights violations in sports, and the experiences of marginalised communities such as refugees and asylum seekers. She is one of four leads on the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science’s SEPAR equality, diversity, and inclusivity workshops where much of her work focuses on providing training on cultural competence in practice for upcoming sport and exercise psychologists. Shakiba is also the Chair of the British Psychological Society’s Human Rights Advisory Group.

This week I’m delighted to speak to Dr Charlie Corsby, Prof Robyn Jones and Dr Andy Lane.

Charlie is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Charlie holds a UEFA ‘A’ Licence coaching qualification. Alongside his academic responsibilities, Charlie is the Head Coach for Cardiff Met FC BUCS1 programme.​ The focus of Charlie’s research relate to the everyday complexities and affairs of coaches, particularly relating to ‘influence’ and ‘control’ within the coaching context.

Robyn is Professor of Sport and Social Theory and a former Associate Dean of Research at Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK. Robyn’s research area comprises a critical sociology of coaching in respect of examining the relational nature of the work, and how practitioners manage the power-ridden dilemmas that arise. The purpose is to generate critical insight into an important part of cultural life, namely that of sports participation, and how that complex experience is framed by coaches

Andy is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching at Cardiff Metropolitan University. He is currently the Programme Director for the BSc Sport Coaching Undergraduate degree and teaches across undergraduate and post graduate programmes. Andrew also currently supervises a number of post graduate students within coaching and coach education and is a member of the Schools Social Science ethics committee.

We discuss a paper co-written by Charlie, Robyn and Andy entitled “Contending with vulnerability and uncertainty: what coaches say about coaching”.