This brief review of a psychoanalytic approach to anxiety in athletes should suggest that far from being an unnecessary afterthought in sports, psychoanalysis has the potential to provide a wide array of insights and interventions for the anxiety ridden athlete. Psychoanalysis alone provides a long-term relationship with the athlete which gives him or her the space in which to explore the many areas of disturbance they suffer with. Post trauma due to injury or embarrassing defeat is extremely common and is remedied only in a slow and careful manner. Often the problems these athletes have are deep-rooted and go untouched by standard ognitive-behavioral work. The hope for a quick fix that cognitive behavioral interventions often promise will usually lead to disappointment in all but the easiest cases. Athletes that suffer with narcissistic personalities, low self-image, inhibitions with aggression, guilt, shame or separation anxiety will usually require serious and delicate psychotherapy that psychoanalysis can provide. These conflicts can produce self-defeat that dynamics are largely unconscious. The therapist that plans on a full-time career in sport psychology would be advised to look into psychoanalytic training. I believe that the future of sport psychology will be found in a synthesis of cognitive-behavioral, or what I call the suppressive therapies, blending with psychoanalytic therapies which include long-term supportive treatment, modification of low self-image and ego strengthening measures, what are referred to as the expressive therapies.
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