Sport psychology and concussion: new impacts to explore.

I n recent years, there has been great interest in examining the psychological effects of athletic injuries. This has also extended to interventions in which coping strategies have been suggested to enhance recovery. Concussive injuries, which are common to many sports, hold particular problems in this regard. For example, a concussed athlete may be prone to experience isolation, pain, anxiety, and disruption of daily life as a result of the injury. This may be a problem for individual sport athletes— for example, professional skiers—who do not have the support of team mates to help them through their rehabilitation and recovery, as well as team sport athletes whose team mates may inadvertently pressure them to return to play. Besides the physical loss resulting from an injury, there may also be psychological distress. Commonly reported emotion responses resulting from athletic injury have included anger, denial, depression, distress, bargaining, shock, and guilt. These are particularly seen in career ending injuries. Such emotional distress can negatively affect the athletes’ recovery process.