David Carless

Abandoning The Performance Narrative: Two Women's Stories of Transition from Professional Sport

Despite its potential to illuminate psychological processes within socio-cultural contexts, examples of narrative research are rare in sport psychology. In this study, we employed an analysis of narrative to explore two womens stories of living in, and withdrawing from, professional tournament golf gathered through life history interviews conducted over 6 years. Our findings suggest that immersion in elite sport culture shaped these womens identities around performance values of single-minded dedication to sport and prioritization of winning above all other areas of life. When the performance narrative ceased to “fit” their changing lives, both women, having no alternative narrative to guide their personal life stories, experienced narrative wreckage and considerable personal trauma. They required asylum—a place of refuge where performance values were no longer paramount—to story their lives around a relational narrative that reinstated a coherent identity while providing meaning and worth to life after golf.

‘We haven’t got a seat on the bus for you’ or ‘all the seats are mine’: narratives and career transition in professional golf

In this article we explore how the stories an athlete tells throughout life in sport affect her career transition experiences. We base our enquiry on a social constructionist conception of narrative theory which holds that storytelling is integral to the creation and maintenance of identity and sense of self. Life stories were gathered through interviews with two professional women golfers (Christiana and Kandy) over a six‐year period. Through a narrative analysis of structure and form we explored each participant’s stories of living in and withdrawing from professional golf. We suggest Christiana told monological performance‐oriented stories which, while aligning with the culture of elite sport, resulted in an exclusive athletic identity and foreclosure of alternative selves and roles. On withdrawal, Christiana experienced narrative wreckage, identity collapse, mental health difficulties and considerable psychological trauma. In contrast, Kandy told dialogical discovery‐oriented stories which, while being in tension with the dominant performance narrative, created and sustained a multidimensional identity and self. Her stories and identity remained intact, authentic and continuous on withdrawal from tournament golf and she experienced few psychological problems.

Using Stories in Coach Education

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how storied representations of research can be used as an effective pedagogical tool in coach education During a series of continuing professional development seminars for professional golf coaches, we presented our research in the form of stories and poems which were created in an effort to evoke and communicate the lived experiences of elite professional golfers. Following these presentations, we obtained written responses to the stories from 53 experienced coaches who attended the seminars. Analysis of this data revealed three ways in which coaches responded to the stories: (i) questioning; (ii) summarising; and (iii) incorporating. We conclude that these responses illustrate the potential of storied forms of representation to enhance professional development through stimulating reflective practice and increasing understanding of holistic, person-centred approaches to coaching athletes in high-performance sport.

Social support for and through exercise and sport in a sample of men with serious mental illness.

Social support is important for people experiencing serious mental illness and is also important during the initiation and maintenance of exercise. In this article we draw on interpretive research into the experiences of 11 men with serious mental illness to explore four dimensions of social support both for and through exercise. Our findings suggest that informational, tangible, esteem, and emotional support were both provided for and given by participants through exercise. We conclude that experiences of both receiving and giving diverse forms of support in this way are significant for some people living with and recovering from serious mental illness.

Narrative, Identity, and Recovery from Serious Mental Illness: A Life History of a Runner

In recent years, researchers have investigated the psychological effects of exercise for people with mental health problems, often by focusing on how exercise may alleviate symptoms of mental illness. In this article I take a different tack to explore the ways in which exercise contributed a sense of meaning, purpose, and identity to the life of one individual named Ben, a runner diagnosed with schizophrenia. Drawing on life history data, I conducted an analysis of narrative to explore the narrative types that underlie Bens stories of mental illness and exercise. For Ben, serious mental illness profoundly disrupted a pre-existing athletic identity removing agency, continuity, and coherence from his life story. By returning to exercise several years later, Ben reclaimed his athletic identity and reinstated some degree of narrative agency, continuity, and coherence. While the relationships between narrative, identity, and mental health are undoubtedly complex, Bens story suggests that exercise can contribute to recovery by being a personally meaningful activity which reinforces identity and sense of self.

Exploring taboo issues in professional sport through a fictional approach

While the need to consider life course issues in elite sport research and practice is increasingly recognised, some experiences still seem to be considered too dangerous to explore. Consequently, stories of these experiences are silenced and the ethical and moral questions they pose fail to be acknowledged, understood or debated. This paper presents an ethnographic fiction through which we explore a sensitive set of experiences that were uncovered during our research with professional sportspeople. Through a multi‐layered reconstruction, the story reveals the complex, but significant, relationships that exist between identity, cultural narratives and embodied experiences. After the telling we consider how the story has stimulated reflective practice among students, researchers and practitioners. While there are risks involved in writing and sharing taboo stories, the feedback we have received suggests that storytelling can be an effective pedagogical tool in education and professional development.

Negotiating Sexuality and Masculinity in School Sport: An Autoethnography.

This autoethnography explores challenging and ethically sensitive issues around sexual orientation, sexual identity and masculinity in the context of school sport. Through storytelling, I aim to show how sometimes ambiguous encounters with heterosexism, homophobia and hegemonic masculinity through sport problematise identity development for young same-sex attracted males. By foregrounding personal embodied experience, I respond to an absence of stories of gay and bisexual experiences among males in physical education and school sport, in an effort to reduce a continuing sense of Otherness and difference regarding same-sex attracted males. I rely on the story itself to express the embodied forms of knowing that inhabit the experiences I describe, and resist a finalising interpretation of the story. Instead, I offer personal reflections on particular theoretical and methodological issues which relate to both the form and content of the story.

Phases in Physical Activity Initiation and Maintenance Among Men with Serious Mental Illness

There is increasing interest in the role of physical activity in mental health promotion, and research suggests that regular participation can provide mental and physical health benefits. However, there is little information on how people with serious mental illness might negotiate the challenges of initiating and maintaining physical activity. This article describes an ethnographic study which explored how four men with serious mental illness successfully incorporated physical activity into their lives. Seven phases characterised the process of initiating and maintaining participation: (i) previous experience of positive physical activity, (ii) cessation of physical activity during acute stage/s of illness, (iii) stabilisation of mental health, (iv) intensive social support, (v) immediate psychosocial benefits, (vi) diversification of physical activity forms and (vii) increasing personal control. These phases are discussed with the intention of providing guidance for those interested in offering and facilitating physical activity opportunities for men with serious mental illness.

Stories of success: Cultural narratives and personal stories of elite and professional athletes

Using a narrative methodology to explore the stories Olympic and elite athletes tell about success, we identified three alternatives to the dominant conception of success as the achievement of performance outcomes. In these alternatives, success is storied as: (1) ‘I did the best that I could’ – a controllable and sustainable story of effort and application; (2) ‘It’s the closest thing you can get to flying’ – a story where success relates to embodied experience and discovery; (3) ‘People I made the journey with’ – which prioritises relationships and connection between people. We reflect on three key insights: (1) success is a multidimensional concept, broader than the singular conception encapsulated within the dominant performance narrative; (2) through various narrative strategies, experienced athletes resist cultural pressures towards a singular conception of success; (3) for long-term performance and well-being, it is necessary to work towards multiple forms of success over time and across contexts.

Restoring connections in physical activity and mental health research and practice: a confessional tale

This paper is a confessional tale about research and practice in the context of sport, physical activity and mental health. The centrepiece of the paper is an ethnographic fiction which, through a series of scenes, tells of our experiences of providing and researching a nine‐week golf programme for a group of men with severe and enduring mental health problems. Ethnographic fiction is a writing strategy which we chose for its ability to both generate and communicate the alternative kinds of knowledge which can be gained through ethnographic research. We reflect on the ways in which this writing strategy led us to a heightened awareness of the intricate web of connections – between people, places, experiences, events, objects and biographies – evident within this particular socio‐cultural setting. Awareness of these connections, we suggest, is necessary if we are to understand (1) the potential roles of sport and exercise for people with mental health difficulties, and (2) the methodological challenges faced by researchers in this field.