Sport Psychology Tactics - How EMDR Helps Cross Country And Track & Field Athletes Beat The Yips
About the Author
Ben Foodman is a licensed psychotherapist & performance specialist. He owns his private practice located in Charlotte North Carolina where he specializes in working with athletes to help them overcome mental blocks (the yips), PTSD, ADD / ADHD and achieve flow states through the techniques of Brainspotting & Neurofeedback. If you are interested in services, use the link here! Enjoy the article below!
Table Of Contents
Introduction: Sport Psychologists, EMDR, Cross Country And Track & Field Athlete Mental Blocks
Part I. The Psychological & Physical Stress Of Cross Country And Track & Field
Part II. Understanding The Yips Psychology (AKA Mental Block) Of Cross Country And Track & Field
Part III. How Sport Psychologists Use EMDR To Help Cross Country And Track & Field Athletes
Introduction: Sport Psychologists, EMDR, Cross Country And Track & Field Athlete Mental Blocks
When Cross Country and Track & Field athletes go to work with a sport psychologist or athlete counselors, they are usually trying to overcome psychological barriers such as the Yips, trauma or they are trying to enhance mental performance. Part of the reason this sport population frequently works with mental performance experts is because the physical demands of cross country and track & field are incredibly brutal. The amount of physical pain that athletes need to constantly dissociate from in combination with the constant attention that is required towards keeping their body from becoming severely injured can have a traumatic effect on these endurance athletes. I know this because I have been fortunate to be able to work with some of the most talented athletes in these sports, many of whom have competed in the ACC, SEC, BIG10 and Olympics.
While most of these individuals have come to work with me primarily through a Brainspotting-focused approach, from time to time some athletes need to find professionals that are closer to them in proximity, but do not have Brainspotting therapists near them. While I believe Brainspotting is one of the most superior psychotherapy techniques available, its’ predecessor Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (AKA EMDR) therapy is a highly effective intervention that can be used as well. For this issue of the Training Report I want to discuss why EMDR is a very effective therapy intervention for cross-country and track & field athletes. In part I., I will go into more detail about the psychological stress these athletes experience. In part II., I will explore why this sport induces psychological trauma upon its’ participants. Finally, in part III. I will review why EMDR is a perfect fit for this athlete population. Let’s begin by exploring the stress associated with cross country and track & field.
Part I. The Psychological & Physical Stress Of Cross Country And Track & Field
Whether you are competing at the high school level, division I & II college level, or world championship events, the stress associated with the sports of cross country and track and field can be brutal. These athlete populations have to train on a regular basis in order to maintain their training effect and also generate new levels of endurance-based strength so they can achieve new PRs. This can be a mentally grueling process in terms of the pressure to create new PR times, please coaches and families, and tune out the ‘chatter’ from opposing teams and athletes. Also factor in how the physical demands of these sports can take a severe toll on the body, and you have athletes that are constantly sore, ‘managing’ injuries, and constantly stressed about whether or not they are achieving new performance standards.
When all is said and done, these experiences can lead individuals towards suffering the consequences of physical and mental trauma. When athletes undergo enough traumatic experiences, they become at an even greater risk for developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and/or the Yips. PTSD and the Yips can be incredibly destabilizing and can cause athletes to either abruptly exit their sport or quit all together. Even worse, most sport psychologists and athlete counselors use the wrong approaches to help these athletes deal with their Yips/PTSD symptoms, because they are trying to directly ‘cure’ the symptoms instead of the underlying issue. In order to avoid continuing the cycle that sport psychologists put athletes through, let’s review the science behind PTSD and the Yips and why they occur as a result of participation in these sports.
Part II. Understanding The Yips Psychology (AKA Mental Block) Of Cross Country And Track & Field
In the book This Is Your Brain On Sports by David Grand, the author goes into detail explaining what happens in the brain that causes PTSTD and the Yips. Per the author ‘In parallel fashion, the brain attempts to always move toward a state of psychological equilibrium. Over the course of our lives, we are exposed to a variety of life experiences, some positive, some neutral, and some negative. Through a natural assimilation process, the brain adaptively processes these experiences so they are constructively integrated. What is useful from the experience is learned and stored in the brain with the appropriate emotion and is available for future use. When an experience is successfully assimilated or digested it is stored in the brain with little attached intense emotion or physical sensation. When we recall such an incident, we don’t reexperience the old emotion or sensation with it. In this way we are informed by our past experiences and memories but not controlled by them and with sports our present athletic performances are not burdened by emotional or physical baggage from the past, only learned experience. By contrast, trauma or any strongly negatively charged experience isn’t adequately assimilated or processed. Instead, the upsetting incident remains stuck in the system in broken pieces’.
The author continues, ‘ The body instantly memorizes the physical experience of the trauma in exquisite detail, including the body sensations of the impact and pain, along with the associated sights, sounds, smells and tastes. The attached emotions and where they are felt in the body are frozen as well. The brain is overwhelmed and instead of getting digested, all of the information attached to the injury, including the negative thoughts is stored in the brain in exactly the same form it was initially experienced. Days, week, months or even years later when the athlete is in a situation reminiscent of the original trauma or experiences prolonged stress, the upsetting experience may be unconsciously activated, thus interfering with the performance of the moment. These components represent all of the sensory details from the earlier event that were frozen in the brain and body in their original disturbing state: the images, lighting, emotions, physical movements, sounds, or smells. The unique sensory details later returning to consciousness cause the performance disrupting symptoms so common in mental blocks.’
To further emphasize this point, in the book The Body Keeps The Score, Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk goes even deeper explaining how the mechanisms of the brain respond to stress (high levels of stress frequently are experienced in these sports), which in turn create the symptoms of PTSD and the Yips: the emotional brain has first dibs on interpreting incoming information. Sensory information about the environment and body state received by the eyes, ears, touch, kinesthetic sense, etc. converges on the thalamus where it is processed and then passed on to the amygdala to interpret its emotional significance. This occurs with lightning speed. If a threat is detected, the amygdala sends messages to the hypothalamus to secrete stress hormones to defend against that threat. The neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux calls this the low road. The second neural pathway, the high road, runs from the thalamus via the hippocampus and anterior cingulate, to the prefrontal cortex, the rational brain, for a conscious and much more refined interpretation. This takes several microseconds longer. If the interpretation of threat by the amygdala is too intense, and/or the filtering system from the higher areas of the brain are too weak, as often happens in PTSD, people lose control over automatic emergency response, like prolonged startle or aggressive outbursts.
In summary, while cross country and track & field can be rewarding endeavors to athletes, even the individuals who had positive experiences will be at an increased risk of experiencing trauma or symptoms of the Yips. The physical and psychological demands of the sport only get more intense as the competition becomes more steep, and as such competitors in this sport will need the proper resources to deal with these issues if they are going to sustain long-term careers. The previous excerpts clearly explain how the brain will inevitably respond to stress. Knowing that these sports can cause trauma does not mean that athletes should quit these sports. It just means that if one is going to compete in them, then in the same way they have strength coaches to help them increase their athleticism, they will also need mental coaches to help them overcome the negative psychological impact of the sport. With that being said, let’s explore how EMDR can play a part in that capacity.
Part III. How Sport Psychologists Use EMDR To Help Cross Country And Track & Field Athletes
While very uncommon, there is a growing number of sport psychologists and athlete therapists that are beginning to use Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy when working with athletes. In the book Emotional Healing At Warp Speed, by Dr. David Grand, he provides detailed insight into what EMDR is and why it is one of the most effective psychotherapy techniques on the market outside of Brainspotting. The author states the following: EMDR is essentially a body-oriented treatment. The purpose of the step-by-step protocol, proceeding from target image to cognition to emotions, is to arrive at the container of the body. Once the patient has reprocessed an experience, the final step validating the completion of the healing is to scan the body. Is there any tension left? Any discomfort or uneasiness? A newborn baby cannot differentiates between body sensation and emotion. Hunger, being soiled, fear, frustration, and contentment are all felt in the body and are differentiated only as comfort and discomfort. The reptilian brain and the body are acting as one. Discomfort is discomfort, whether it’s emotional or physical. The same thing applies to comfort.
The author continues: EMDR itself is centrally located among the various forms of psychotherapy. If you imagine a wheel with all other psychotherapies as its spokes, EMDR can be found at its core. Thought, sensory memory, emotion, and body experience are all components of psychological life and cannot be separated. if you ignore the body in trying to understand emotion, you lose the resonance of the feeling. How we demonstrate our emotions through posture, facial expression, and ‘body language’ is as crucial to communication as spoken words. No social contact, no intimate relationship, no business exchange exists without body language. For it is here that the unconscious, unspoken, underlying feelings are expressed. ‘I love you’ the young woman says to her boyfriend, shying away from his touch. ‘I won’t hurt you’ the bully promises, aggressively in his victim’s face. ‘That’s my best offer’ the salesman says, suddenly sweating, pupils dilating. In each case, it is the language of the body, not the words surrounding it, that speaks the truth.
David Grand concludes: EMDR presents constant opportunities to access meaning through the body and in some instances to treat emotions that are preverbal. If, at three months, a baby falls into a pool and nearly drowns, that trauma is recalled in the sensation of suffocation along with the terror that accompanied it. years later it might show up as a breathing difficulty, perhaps asthma or panic attacks. Experiences that are reminiscent of the original trauma will trigger an adrenaline release by the brain that is felt primarily in the body. From brain to body to brain is a loop that has no true beginning or end. It’s important to note to readers who may not be familiar with this therapy, that Dr. David Grand is the founder of Brainspotting, and has moved on from the EMDR model (he was also formerly an EMDR trainer). But ultimately, athletes will choose to go with a wide variety of mental health options. However if you were to talk to any veteran within the field of psychotherapy, it would be highly recommended that athlete’s seek interventions that are trauma-informed and somatic focused. Therapy techniques such as EMDR, Brainspotting, Neurofeedback, Biofeedback and Yoga are great examples of what athletes should focus on, when trying to train their mind on working through trauma and the Yips!
Note To Reader:
If you are an athlete reading this segment of the TRAINING REPORT, hopefully this content was helpful! I put the Training Report together because I felt like many of the discussions on issues such as the Yips/mental blocks, strength training & other subject matter on athlete performance concepts were really missing the mark on these ideas (e.g. how trauma is the direct cause of the Yips). If you are interested in learning more, make sure to subscribe below for when I put out new content on issues related to sport psychology & athlete performance! Also, if you are looking to work with a mental performance specialist, you are in the right place! USE THIS LINK to reach out to me to see if my services are the right fit for your goals!
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