Zella E. Moore

A mindfulness-acceptance-commitment-based approach to athletic performance enhancement: Theoretical considerations

While traditional cognitive-behavioral skills-training-based approaches to athletic performance enhancement posit that negative thoughts and emotions must be controlled, eliminated, or replaced for athlete-clients to perform optimally, recent evidence suggests that efforts to control, eliminate, or suppress these internal states may actually have the opposite effect. Interventions based on mindfulness and acceptance suggest that internal cognitive and emotional states need not be eliminated, changed, or controlled in order to facilitate positive behavioral outcomes. Rather, it is suggested that an alternative or supplemental approach to the enhancement of athletic performance may be achieved through strategies and techniques that target the development of mindful (nonjudgmental) present-moment acceptance of internal experiences such as thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations, along with a clarification of valued goals and enhanced attention to external cues, responses, and contingencies that are required for optimal athletic performance.

Understanding Clinical Anger and Violence: The Anger Avoidance Model

Although anger is a primary emotion and holds clear functional necessities, the presence of anger and its behavioral manifestations of aggression/violence can have serious emotional, health, and social consequences. Despite such consequences, the construct of clinical anger has to date suffered from few theoretical and treatment advancements and has received insufficient research attention. Thus, the purpose of this article is to introduce the Anger Avoidance Model, which is a new conceptualization of clinical anger and its behavioral manifestations. The Anger Avoidance Model suggests that among anger patients, a chronic early aversive history leads to information processing biases and emotion regulation deficits, which in turn result in intense efforts to avoid the experience of anger. This avoidance takes the form of hostile rumination (cognitive avoidance) and aggressive and violent behavior (behavioral avoidance). This model holds clear implications for research and treatment of this challenging clinical phenomenon.

Ethical dilemmas in sport psychology: Discussion and recommendations for practice

The practice demands required of sport psychologists often complicate the direct and specific fulfillment of several ethical regulations. Many practitioners face specific issues of confidentiality and the appropriate use of informed consent, challenges to practicing within areas of competence, issues regarding termination, and challenges that arise from multiorganizational demands and the formation of multiple relationships. Although ethical guidelines established by the American Psychological Association direct practice in order to protect both the client and the practitioner from difficult and dangerous situations, these guidelines typically pertain directly to traditional practice efforts. Within sport psychology, although ethical practice requires consideration of established guidelines, the specific demands of the population and setting complicate traditional adherence to such parameters. Sport psychologists must be flexible in their practice and carefully consider how the Ethics Code can both benefit athlete-clients and minimize inherent practice difficulties.

International society of sport psychology position stand: Athletes’ mental health, performance, and development

Mental health is a major resource for athletes in relation to their performance and development. Concurrently, athletes experience additional mental health risk factors compared to non-athletic population, such as high training loads, tough competitions, and a stressful lifestyle. Contemporary statistics demonstrate a substantial growth in athletes’ mental health-related problems, such as concussion, overtraining, and identity crisis. Therefore, the International Society of Sport Psychology through this Position Stand provides support to sport psychology researchers, practitioners, sport participants, and stakeholders in understanding: (a) mental health phenomenon based on continuum-type models outlining mental illness (prevalence vs. absence) and mental health in association with peak performance, (b) major findings of research dealing with athletes’ performance, career and personal (e.g. identity) development in relation to mental health issues, and (c) interventions aimed at monitoring and maintaining athletes’ mental health as well as preventing various forms of mental ill-being. Five major sections reflect the logic outlined above (i.e. from definitions and theories to research and practice), complemented by 10 postulates summarising the International Society of Sport Psychology message intended to spur further discussions on how to make athletes healthier and, thus, more resourceful for (and through) sport.

The relationship between anger, childhood maltreatment, and emotion regulation difficulties in intimate partner and non-intimate partner violent offenders.

Violence is a significant public health problem, which has been linked to the primary emotion of anger. While several theoretical models have attempted to understand the relationship between anger and violence, empirical evidence to support these models and the psychological treatments that follow from them have been lacking. A newer model for understanding the relationship between anger and violence emphasizes the dual diatheses of childhood maltreatment and difficulties in emotion regulation as central to understanding the anger−violence relationship. Investigating the relationship between childhood maltreatment and anger experience and expression among 88 violent offenders referred for intimate partner or non-intimate partner violent offenses, results herein confirm that substantial childhood maltreatment is found among violent offenders, with differing patterns of abuse noted across groups. Furthermore, mediational analyses indicate that difficulties in emotion regulation mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and various aspects of anger experience and expression among both types of offenders.

The Psychology of Enhancing Human Performance

Part I: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations Chapter 1: Understanding Functional and Dysfunctional Human Performance: The Integrative Model of Human Performance (IMHP) Pre-Performance Phase Dispositional Characteristics Environmental Stimuli Performance Demands Performance Phase Post-performance Response Phase Behavioral Avoidance Cognitive Avoidance Introduction to the Acceptance-based Approach.

An Exploration of the Mediators Between Childhood Maltreatment and Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with numerous long-term consequences and warrants significant clinical attention. Recent theoretical models and empirical research have suggested that several factors play a role in the development of IPV perpetration, including childhood maltreatment, early maladaptive schemas, anger, and difficulties in emotion regulation. This study investigated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and IPV, specifically examining the mediation of this relationship by several variables thought to be related to this pernicious problem, including early maladaptive schemas, the experience of anger, and emotion regulation difficulties. In a young adult collegiate sample of 110 women in relationships, results of a bootstrapped multiple mediation analysis supported the hypothesis that childhood maltreatment predicted physical aggression within intimate partner relationships and found that the total indirect effect of childhood maltreatment on physical aggression through the 3 proposed mediators was significant. However, consistent with recent empirical findings, only difficulties in emotion regulation significantly mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and physical aggression within the sample.

Mindfulness-based and acceptance-based interventions in sport and performance contexts

Since mindfulness-based and acceptance-based practice models were first conceptualized and applied in sport in an attempt to enhance performance and overall well-being of athletes and performers, these state-of-the-art theoretical and practice models have substantially broadened our knowledge base and have been successfully incorporated into sport and performance practice domains worldwide. Evolving from a sound empirical foundation, mindfulness-based and acceptance-based models in sport psychology have accumulated a strong basic and applied empirical foundation. In the nearly 20 years since their incorporation in the context of sport, empirical findings have demonstrated efficacious outcomes associated with performance and personal well-being, as well as supported their theorized mechanisms of change. Particularly as sport and performance environments increasingly call upon practitioners to provide more comprehensive care to clientele, including a range of care from performance enhancement and maintenance, to general personal well-being, to subclinical and clinical issues, mindfulness-based and acceptance-based practitioners have the tools to offer robust, empirically informed interventions that can enhance skills and quality of life, and/or ameliorate personal struggles.

Current opinion in clinical sport psychology: from athletic performance to psychological well-being

Clinical sport psychology (CSP) is a contemporary, empirically informed model that employs a scope, style, and mode of practice built upon cutting-edge findings from both clinical and sport sciences, and that follows the sound methodological traditions of clinical psychology [1••]. Conceptualizing athletic performance and well-being through the context of empirical research in both athletic and nonathletic domains of functioning, CSP practice can involve the enhancement of athletic performance, and also the personal development and psychological well-being of performers. CSP intervention options expand (if desired) to include those currently considered to be outside of the purview of traditional sport psychology and within the domains of clinical/counseling psychology. Importantly, CSP does not imply that its practitioners must choose a population. CSPers can, if appropriate, assess and intervene with psychological disorders, performance dysfunction, and performance improvement, and/or can make appropriate referrals. Despite whether one personally addresses the variety of interpersonal, non-diagnosable, and clinical issues potentially presented, they must support a comprehensive, client-specific approach and engage in interventions based on sound evidence. Expanding practice boundaries, and with it ones roles and responsibilities, also results in expanded job opportunities. This scope highlights the clinical sport psychologist as the human behavior expert in the athletic milieu.

Current Status of the Anger Avoidance Model: Recent Empirical Findings and Treatment Considerations

The Anger Avoidance Model (AAM), a contemporary theoretical model for understanding the relationship between anger and violence, was presented first in 2008, and since, empirical research has been mostly supportive of its tenets. The AAM essentially purports that individuals prone to violent behaviour typically manifest an aversive developmental history; early maladaptive schemas, which serve as a lens through which one interprets life experience; and poorly developed emotion regulation skills. Such deficits in emotion regulation result in poor tolerance of emotions such as anger, and in turn frequently lead to efforts to avoid or escape the experience of negative emotion, particularly anger, with violent behaviour often the consequence. Based on supported principles within the AAM, contextual anger regulation therapy (CART) was developed specifically to treat clients exhibiting such anger-related violent behaviour. The current article provides a needed update on recent empirical findings that support the AAM, and subsequently discusses the relationship between the AAM and CART, an integrated acceptance-based behavioural intervention that the AAM directly generated.