SASI psyche in 21st century: makeover or renovation?

Abstract

[Abstract]: In this presentation we pose the question – how would you begin to update SASI Psyche for a contemporary audience of young athletes? Our answer to this question has two parts. Firstly, we draw on our experiences constructing an elementary sport psychology program for Northern Inland Academy of Sport (NIAS) athletes living in northwest NSW. These experiences have taught us that any innovation to psychological skills training involves conceptual, technical, and service delivery components. Secondly, we contrast a makeover with a renovation. That is, we contrast immediate and logical changes such as shifting SASI Psyche audiotapes to a digital format (i.e., technical) and making them available as a download from the SASI website for a Podcast (i.e., service delivery) with a wider reform process. This reform involves considering the conceptual features of contemporary sport psychology. One overlooked feature is the generational imprint that the baby-boomer forefathers of sport psychology have left on psychological skills training. A central point of this presentation is that just as it is unrealistic to expect contemporary young athletes to use walkman technology in 2007, so it may be equally unrealistic to expect that this generation of athletes will embrace the implicit values and ideals of the baby-boomer generation: values and ideals that are imbedded in much of contemporary sport psychology. Instead we suggest that a renovation of SASI Psyche would not only involve technical and service delivery change, like those suggested above, but also adopt some conceptual reforms. For instance, one reform that we display in this paper is conceptualising young athletes as being shaped by the social conditions (i.e., economic, social, cultural and political factors) faced by their generation (c.f., Wyn & Woodman, 2006). Our position on the question, how would you begin to update SASI Psyche for a contemporary audience of young athletes, is to recognise that updating SASI Psyche is more that just a technical issue.