Dan’s Story

Six years ago, I began the exciting first steps in my journey toward a PhD in Psychology. The only problem was, when starting my new role as a doctoral researcher, I had literally no idea what area I wanted my research to focus on. Fortunately, I did have an area of interest in the form of athlete mental health.

Needless to say, athlete mental health has come to be a prevalent topic of interest in modern sport and rightly so. However, when researching this area in more detail, a question I found myself asking was “why isn’t there more research directly relating to what exactly makes an athlete mentally healthy?”

Before we go anything further, I want the reiterate the importance of addressing mental illness in sport and I fully support the amazing work carried out by health professionals in helping those who experience mental health difficulties, However, despite its negative connotations, the term “mental health” is actually defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as “a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully”. Put simply, despite a predominant focus on illness, mental health should actually be regarded as something positive. As such, I wanted to understand we how can help create mentally healthy athletes which led me to the topic of flourishing.

Flourishing is a term which in the world of psychology has come to be regarded as the epitome of mental health and a state of optimal human functioning. Additionally, research has shown that when an individual is flourishing, they are more likely to experience a heightened sense of wellbeing, which in turn helps protect them against symptoms of mental illness. Taking this research into consideration, I wanted to understand what it means to flourish in sport.

To help me answer this question I asked 100 athletes and coaches to provide me with their own definition of flourishing and to tell me the characteristics they felt were most important for an athlete to flourish. From there responses three key areas were highlighted.

1)   Self-actualization- To flourish, an athlete needs opportunities to grow and feel like they are constantly working toward reaching their full potential.

2)   Accomplish- To flourish, an athlete needs to experience sense of accomplishment which can be obtained in several ways. such as winning an event or mastering a new skill in competition

3)   Positive emotion- To flourish, needs to experience positive emotions. Happiness, excitement, enjoyment, and confidence are all key emotional and psychological states and athlete to strive to experience if they want to truly flourish.

Whilst this research is in the (very) early stages, hopefully it can provide a bit of food for thought in relation to what we need to consider if we want to help develop athletes who can truly be regarded as mentally healthy. By doing so, we might be better equipped to not only fell better and function more effectively but also protect ourselves from experiencing mental health issues which can have some really negative consequence for both our performance and quality of life.