You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Editorial
The evolution of sports psychiatry: a clinical intersection of mental health and physical activity
  1. Malte Christian Claussen1,2,
  2. David Prossor3,
  3. Carolyn Nahman4,
  4. James W Burger5,6,
  5. David Baron7,
  6. Carla Edwards8,
  7. Ira D Glick9
  1. 1 Research Group Sports Psychiatry, Center for Psychiatric Research, Department of Adult Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychiatric University Clinic Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
  2. 2 Clinic for Depression and Anxiety, Psychiatric Centre Muensingen, Muensingen, Switzerland
  3. 3 Forensic Psychiatry, John Howard Centre, East London NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
  4. 4 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
  5. 5 Division of Neuropsychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
  6. 6 HIV Mental Health Research Unit, Neuroscience Institute, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
  7. 7 Department of Psychiatry, Department of Clinical Sciences, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, California, USA
  8. 8 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
  9. 9 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Malte Christian Claussen; malte.claussen{at}bli.uzh.ch

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2024-109208

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Long before the term ‘sports psychiatry’ was first introduced nearly 40 years ago,1 2 clinicians and academics recognised the critical role of mental and brain health in sports. For example, Jokl and Guttmann explored neurological and psychiatric studies in boxers as far back as 1932.3 More recently, with efforts spanning the last 30 years, the International Society for Sports Psychiatry (ISSP) has driven development of this field of medicine and psychiatry in the world of competitive and elite sports.4

    However, the aim of sports psychiatry is not only to bring more psychiatric expertise into the care of athletes but also to bring more sport and exercise into psychiatry5 (figure 1). This multinational editorial aims to create awareness of the role of exercise medicine in psychiatric disease and advance the integration of sports psychiatry into the care of athletes by sports medicine professionals globally.

    Figure 1

    The evolution of sports psychiatry.

    The definition and skill set of the sports psychiatrist is outlined in the recently published First International Consensus Statement on Sports Psychiatry.5 Sports psychiatrists complete medical and psychiatric training before specialising in sports psychiatry. The Role of a Sport Psychiatrist on the Sports Medicine Team, Circa 2021 by Stull and Glick et al comprehensively sets out the wide range of roles, relationships and impact that a sports psychiatrist has within a sports medicine setting.6 These included awareness of gender-specific treatment, drug and alcohol disorders, racial discrimination and trauma, treating athletes, coaches and their support personnel. Finally, Glick and Reardon et al emphasised the importance of early detection of mental distress in their paper titled Sports Psychiatry: An Update and the Emerging Role of the Sports Psychiatrist on the Sports Medicine Team.7 They highlight that early and appropriate intervention by a sports psychiatrist may potentially prevent …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • X @DrDKEPross, @CazNahman, @JamesWBurger

    • Contributors MCC: concept, text and design of the figure – original draft and editing. DP, CN, JWB, DB, CE, IDG: text and figure – review and editing. MCC is the guarantor of this editorial.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests MCC, JWB, DB and CE are board members of the International Society for Sports Psychiatry (ISSP). MCC is an associate editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM). There are no other competing interests to declare.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.