EIS staff feature in new Psychology in sport book

Members of the EIS Performance Lifestyle (PL) team have contributed a chapter to a new book, explaining the connections between Performance Lifestyle and positive psychology.

‘Positive Psychology in Sport and Physical Activity, An Introduction’ was published last month.

Performance Lifestyle practitioners at the EIS provide support to athletes across the World Class Performance Programme, by working to develop the necessary skills needed to cope with the unique demands of being an elite performer.

Critically, they also help athletes prepare for life after sport and develop links with employers to provide career development opportunities designed to fit around training and competition demands. The discipline has grown since its inception a little over a decade ago.

Jo Harrison (Head of Performance Lifestyle), Arabella Ashfield (Senior Performance Lifestyle Advisor and PL research Lead) and Sam Giles (Performance Lifestyle PhD student) from the EIS, put their thoughts and practices in print to give an insight into the work that goes on in high performance sport – one that is rarely communicated to the wider world.

Their chapter is called: ‘Performance Lifestyle in Olympic and Paralympic sport: where positive psychology informs practice’.

Jo has outlined the support given to athletes, history and context of the discipline, while Arabella focuses on some of the issues faced by practitioners, collaborative approaches taken with fellow staff and some of the academic evidence supporting PL practice. Sam, meanwhile, has written a section on athlete well-being as it relates to both Olympic and Para athletes.

Arabella said: “We were delighted to showcase the varied work of the Performance Lifestyle team at the EIS.

“We hope that this can be shown to sports and key personnel working across elite sport and the public to improve knowledge of our discipline.”

The book is published by Routledge and can be ordered by clicking here.