Sport and Exercise Psychology Review - Sport Psychology Goes to ...

Mark B. Andersen
The emphasis is are mine. When is a sport
psychologist’s naming of a famous client in
that client’s best interests? Probably never.
‘Expressed permission’ to identify a client
may be clear on the map of ethical conduct,
but the territory of ethical practice is
murkier. Asking permission to use a client’s
name brings up all sorts of issues. Power differentials
often exist between clients and
practitioners, and such a request for a favour
from the sport psychologist carries with it
seeds of coercion, playing on gratitude and
subtly implied obligation. If clients in any way
feel obligated to let the sport psychologist use
their names, then another ethical problem
arises, and that is ‘free and informed consent’.
Murkier and murkier. The answer to
the question ‘Who is being served?’ is obviously
the wrong one, and it is the sport psychologist
who is possibly exploiting the
athlete for status and narcissistic needs. This
name-dropping could also be considered a
form of advertising, implying that a famous
athlete’s performance is due in part to the
work of the psychologist. The BPS code states
clearly ‘avoid the use of testimonials in advertisements
for psychological services’, and
although name-dropping is not a testimonial,
it certainly fits in the territory of forbidden
practice implied by this prohibition.
The truly egregious
Heyman and Andersen (1998) told the story
of a homophobic sport psychologist whose
client revealed that he was gay. The psychologist
violated confidentiality by informing
the coach. The coach kicked the athlete off
the team. Such abuse of trust is beyond the
pale. In my conversations with athletes and
sport psychologists, such horror stories are
all too common. I recall clearly the disastrous
results of a sport psychologist, who was
well-meaning but ignorant, telling an athlete’s
mother that the athlete had an eating
disorder.
The systemic
Sport psychology services have widely varied
histories depending on which country one
observes. Models for service across the globe
have different foci, and Stambulova (2004)
has presented a concise description of the
current (and past) models in use. Her 2004
book chapter is in Swedish, but is available
from the author in English (see Reference
section). The first genus of models she presents
is labelled ‘performance models’. Confidentiality
becomes problematic in these
models because the focus is primarily on
behaviour (i.e., performance) and not necessarily
the happiness and well-being of the
athlete. These models have been seen in the
USA during the early days of sport psychology,
and still flourish there in some training
institutes. The full flower of these models,
and the confidentiality issues surrounding
them, are best seen in the Soviet system of
training athletes. The ultimate client of the
performance model of sport psychology service
delivery in the Soviet system was the
State. Athletes were the means to the ends of
showing the superiority of communism and
the glorification of the Soviet system. After
the State, the next client was the coach. All
information regarding the psychological
strengths and weaknesses of athletes was
available to the coach in order to gain knowledge
useful for enhancing performance.
Thus, there was no confidentiality, and anything
said, or any test results stemming from
sport psychologists’ encounters with athletes,
were immediately available to the
coach. Arguably, the dominance in the 1960s
and 1970s of countries such as the German
Democratic Republic and the Soviet Union
was due, in part, to this extreme version of
sport psychology service. Today, most sport
psychologists would view this model as
exploitative and contrary to the humanistic
goals of psychology.
Recently, however, this model has emerged
in a new pseudo-sensitive form in a major
national institute of sport on the world stage.
The former Sport Psychology Department of
this institute is now called the ‘Performance
Psychology Department’. In this new system,
the coach is the client, and any information
the athlete reveals in sport psychology ses-
8 Sport & Exercise Psychology Review Vol 1 No 2