Psychological Risks and the End of Career in the Event of Injury in High Performance Sport: Analysis of Cases

Abstract

The paper presents the psychological aspect of sports injury in high performance sport. The significance of injury manifests itself in the disruption of everyday life, pain, discomfort, and stress, as well as the accompanying existential experiences. On the one hand, injury appears to be a routine and frequent component of the sports profession; on the other hand, its importance is enormous, and an injured athlete can end his/her professional trajectory without being able to become successful and prosperous in life outside of sport. The work emphasized four cases from the authors’ practice. They demonstrate that a high level of perfectionism and internality in the experience of injury can manifest itself in self-blame and internal conflict; successful post-traumatic growth requires a supporting environment. We indicate the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to intervention when all the key specialists and the close ones are involved in the psychological recovery of an athlete.

Keywords

• counseling
• sport psychology
• high performance sport
• stress
• injury
• anxiety