Exploring How Coaching Practices Impact Athletes’ Holistic Development Opportunities

• Author / Creator

  Sokol, Lydia A

• Recently, sport psychology consulting has transitioned from a focus on mental skills training to helping athletes develop holistically by developing themselves as people in addition to sportspeople (Bond, 2002; Miller & Kerr, 2002; Friesen & Orlick, 2010). While this pursuit is well-intentioned, interventions designed to address holistic development remain focused on individuals. After being exposed to Foucault’s (1995) concept of disciplinary power and how Foucauldian coaching researchers have applied his work to problematize traditional sport settings (e.g., Denison 2007; Denison, Mills, & Konoval, 2015a; Markula & Pringle, 2006; Shogan, 1999), I noticed a gap in the current holistic sport psychology interventions (Friesen & Orlick, 2011) as they were missing a consideration of how ‘the social’ impacts athletes.
  Foucauldian coaching literature has shown that there are unintentional consequences to dominant coaching practices which tend to reinforce athlete docility and the athlete as machine discourse through a coach’s use of disciplinary power (e.g., Barker-Ruchti & Tinning, 2010; Denison, Mills, & Jones, 2013; Gearity & Mills, 2012). Importantly, these unintended effects appear to restrict athletes from being able to benefit from the current holistic sport psychology interventions, as they are limited from seeing themselves as unique people, to make decisions, and to act authentically. To explore how athletes were being affected by dominant coaching practices, and particularly how discipline impacted their holistic development opportunities, I conducted a qualitative study with a local soccer Academy. My data consisted of field notes from weekly observations of both coaches and athletes during their training sessions, as well as transcripts from interviews with the athletes to learn about their experiences at training. Three interviews were completed with each athlete participant to be able to capture moments of growth during the athletes’ participation in the Academy.
  My findings reinforced my early concerns, as discipline often acted to restrict and limit athletes in multiple ways not previously considered by sport psychology consultants. Through the athlete as machine discourse, coach-athlete interactions worked to confine athletes to a homogenous understanding of themselves. Furthermore, I found that discipline worked to promote a docile athlete position whereby athletes were discouraged from thinking for themselves and limited in their decision-making opportunities. Lastly, as power fixed athletes to a ‘norm’, they were pulled in opposing directions as they often had to choose between acting authentically or acting according to their coaches’ expectations. While there were moments where athletes were less restricted and limited in their opportunities to see themselves as people, think for themselves, and choose their actions, these moments occurred when disciplinary power was less pervasive. Importantly, I outlined that athletes face multiple barriers to holistic development within a disciplinary sport environment, and as such it is important for sport psychology consultants to be aware of said barriers and create new interventions designed to address them if they wish to be effective in their practice.
  My study was unique in that it aimed to connect sport psychology and sport sociology, answering Thorpe, Ryba, and Denison’s (2014) call to bring the two fields together in conversation. In doing so, I was able to show support for taking an interdisciplinary approach to research and consulting practice, as it is imperative that we consider how both ‘the individual’ and ‘the social’ impact athletes’ experience, well-being, and performance. Therefore, I propose that we reimagine holistic sport psychology philosophy and subsequent interventions from a poststructural lens to better facilitate athletes’ holistic development.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Coaching
  • Holistic Sport Psychology
  • Athlete Development
  • Foucault
  • Power

• Graduation date

  Spring 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-vm6m-pv29

• License

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