Q&A with EIS Sports Psychologist Laura Cosgrove and her role with Diving

With the Commonwealth Games in full swing over on the Gold Coast, we spoke to EIS Performance Psychologist Laura Cosgrove, who works with GB’s divers, about how she interacts with the athletes and what the role of a psychologist in the sport entails.

As a psychologist, in a sport like Diving, what are the main priorities and objectives of your role?

Currently, I work at the English Institute of Sport in a Performance Psychology role for the British Diving Team, delivering psychological support to all the training centres (i.e., Leeds, Sheffield, London and Plymouth). In particular, designing and implementing psychological interventions to identified podium athletes, and delivering camp-based sport psychology intervention programmes to support athletes and coaches in England Talent and Podium Potential.

In a nutshell, my role is to help ensure that at both the individual (e.g., athletes, coaches) and program level (e.g., coach-athlete dynamic; staff–coach dynamic), processes are in place to improve performance (e.g., communication, expectation management, contingency planning, performance routines, debriefing). Specifically, as diving is a closed-skill sport, mental skills needed for performance are frequently discussed and put in place.

How does your discipline enable improvements in performance?

Psychology is centred on individuals becoming more aware of what they are thinking/feeling and how that affects their behaviour. By being more aware, it means that patterns can be identified (e.g., on ‘good’ and ‘bad’ days; under pressure) and plans and strategies put in place to protect performance as much as possible. Psychology can be directed in both a reactive (e.g., dealing with high emotions after competition) and proactive way (e.g., coach education) as well as at an individual and group/program level. All of these different angles can help improve performance depending on what is a priority at the time.

What particular issues do athletes tend to report and you regularly find yourself dealing with in Diving?

Although there are typical concerns that are discussed around skills (e.g., fear of doing dives), motivation, competition nerves, and goal-setting, anything that affects the athletes’ performance is taken into account within my role. Therefore, life stressors such as school work, exams, moving out of home and friendship concerns to name a few, are all things that can distract the diver from their training or competition mindset.

What methods might you suggest for a diver dealing with these issues?

There are typical strategies that can be used to help athletes within competition such as developing competition routines, focusing and resetting techniques, and using cue words to help with their dives, but it all depends on the individual. For those who are less experienced, strategies are tried and tested in training and then competition whereas those who are more experienced have their own individual strategies that have been developed over time and are consistently used.

Do some athletes need more help/ guidance than others/does it solely depend on the athlete?

It purely depends on the athlete. Some athletes are more psychologically robust than others and some have more experience than others. In saying that, more experience does not equal a lower need for psychological skills training, but it allows more information to be reviewed when helping shape what technique would work best for them (e.g., they have more competitions to draw information from). The younger athletes often just need information to start to trial a few techniques and from there, they can be shaped on an individual basis.

How important is it to build rapport and trust with the athlete (& coaches) and develop other non-technical skills?

Building rapport and trust with athletes and coaches is absolutely crucial and a non-negotiable in psychology. If the trust from the athletes and coaches isn’t there, it is very difficult to discuss their concerns and for them to feel comfortable bringing up potentially sensitive issues. I spent my first few months with the diving team visiting centres and watching training before starting the ‘real’ work to help build relationships and for the athletes/coaches becoming comfortable with my presence.

How do you interact with other disciplines as part of a multidisciplinary team?

We have a meeting most weeks where we come together and review each of the diving sites. From here, some areas of work with athletes overlap into different disciplines (e.g., nutrition and physiotherapy). In these instances, we discuss from each angle what we are seeing and agree on a plan that incorporates skills from different disciplines to help the athlete in question.

Why do you enjoy working for a sport like diving?

I have always loved diving and the challenges that it provides. I believe that an individual closed-skill sport is potentially more demanding from a psychology point of view as the athlete has no-one else to rely on but themselves, which provides a very different dynamic to a team sport. Also, the fear that the athletes can experience from learning a new dive or hurting themselves can be immense and can trigger a very strong emotional and psychological reaction, which means that mental skills are very important to have at their disposal.

Why do you enjoy working as a sports psychologist in the EIS?

The psychology team within the EIS is quite large and each person is readily accessible to share knowledge and experiences. Because of this, the support provided on both a daily basis and through CPD is excellent. I have developed so much as a practitioner since working for the EIS and working alongside psychologists from other sports in Sheffield allows for constant communication about what projects they are running and creating.