MINDFULNESS PART I AND PART II

Thursday, 11.07. – Sunday, 14.07.2024
Pre-Congress Week Mindfulness Part I and Part II for experienced sport psychologists nearby Innsbruck in the alps

Thursday, 11.07. start: 09 am – Sunday, 14.07.2024 5pm

What is it that all Olympic Athletes most desire from Sport Psychology?

Part I – Mindfulness and ACT at the Olympic Games – 4 participant slots remaining

Part I with Dr. Peter Haberl

The objectives of this interactive workshop are to experientially engage the participants with the importance, effectiveness and inherent obstacles of using mindfulness and ACT principles as a guiding paradigm for optimal mental preparation in the lead up and during the Olympic & Paralympic Games. The workshop will address common myths in the minds of athletes (and sport psychologists) on what mindstates are necessary for optimal performance at the Olympic & Paralympic Games and how to address those myths with mindfulness and ACT. The methods used will include mindfulness practices, experiential activities viewed through the lens of ACT, case examples from the Olympic Games, as well as storytelling and metaphor. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss and reflect on their own cases. At the end of part I of the workshop, participants will have a clear understanding of how to integrate mindfulness in their own practice. Education handouts, core worksheets and mindfulness scripts will be provided.

Part II with Dr. Peter Haberl

The objective of the second part of the workshop is to introduce and educate the participants in the application of social meditation with Olympic & Elite athletes. The target audience are sport psychology practitioners who have a background in mindfulness and ACT approaches, and an interest in innovative mindfulness practices. Having attended "Mindfulness and ACT at the Olympic Games part I" will be beneficial. Traditionally, meditation is practiced in silence, often alone, or by following a guided script. Social meditation, as opposed to traditional silent meditation, are a family of meditation practices that are done socially, and aloud (as developed by Kenneth Folk and Vince Horn, see Gleig 2019). Social meditation amplifies our ability to stay on task during meditation. Participants will learn, through instruction, practice and discussion, the why, how, what, and when of social meditation and how the instructor uses these techniqes with Olympic athletes in the lead up and at the Olympic Games. These social noting techniques lend themselves to team sport athletes but work equally well with individual sport athletes. This workshop will be very participatory. Attendees will get to experince, practice and debrief a variety of social meditation practices, with a focus on concentration, awareness, equanimity, and gratitude and learn how these techniques can be applied with Olympic & elite athletes and discuss how these techniques might be applicable in their own work. Attendees will also get practice in leading these techniques in the second half of the workshop.

Outdoor location Outdoor location nearby Innsbruck (overnight stay with full pension (single room)).

Registration-fee: 2.800 Euro (this includes the FEPSAC-Congress fee 2024 and the fee for the Pre-Congress Workshop Mindfulness Part I and Part II, registration materials, costs overnight stay with full pension (single room - (five nights from Wednesday 10.07.2024 - Monday 15.07.2024): four lunches, four dinners, 5x breakfast and accommodation;

Seminar language: English

First come first served.

Agenda:

+ Emotions and the Olympic athlete
+ Thoughts and the Olympic athlete
+ Attention and the Olympic athlete
+ How to work with key processes of mindfulness and acceptance in elite sport
+ ACT Hexaflex Model
+ ACT Triflex Model
+ Mindfulness techniques for pre-performance routines
+ Helping athletes regain motivation and find meaning in their endeavours
+ Helping athletes, teams and coaches to clarify and to become aware of what is valuable and important for them
+ Confidence and the Olympic athlete
+ Doubt and the Olympic athlete
+ Navigate performance at the Olympic Games and teaching athletes to not get caught up in worrying about entering an optimal performance state in competitions
+ Helping sport psychologists stay fully present with their clients

Location:
Austria – Tyrol - local area Innsbruck

Date:
Thursday, 11.07. start: 09.00 am –Sunday, 14.07.2024 05.00 pm

Speaker:

Dr. Peter Haberl – Senior Sport Psychologist, Ed.D. CMPC Peter works in private practice with elite athletes as a sport psychologist and a mental performance consultant. He has enjoyed the privilege of having worked at nine Olympic Games, four Pan American Games, and one Paralympic Games with U.S. athletes. He was employed by the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee from 1998 to 2023. He continues to work with U.S. National Teams and athletes as they prepare for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Prior to moving to the U.S., Peter played professional ice hockey in Austria, where he was born and received his bachelor’s degree in sports science from the University of Vienna, Austria. He later earned his master's degree in counseling and his Ed. D. in counseling psychology at Boston University. A licensed psychologist, Peter focuses on mindfulness and ACT-based interventions. He is the recipient of the 2011 AASP Distinguished Professional Practice Award.

• Pre-Congress Workshop 1: Monday, 15.07.2024 from 10.00 am – 12.30 pm

Applying research to practice: Helping athletes disclose childhood sexual abuse. Guidelines on how Sports Psychologists can support athletes! Rosaleen Mc Elvaney This workshop will provide an overview of research on the barriers and facilitators of disclosing sexual abuse in adulthood and, drawing on that research, explore how Sports Psychologists can facilitate disclosure. Research to date has provided definitive evidence that most individuals who have experienced childhood sexual abuse do not disclose this experience until adulthood. Many individuals are therefore deprived of the opportunity to address the psychological and social sequelae of this potentially distressing experience. Qualitative studies using direct enquiry methods with both children and adults who share these experiences indicate that one of the key facilitators to disclosure is the opportunity to confide in a trusted other. Sports Psychologist are well placed to facilitate such disclosure. The presenter, who has conducted extensive research in this field, and has worked clinically with children and adults who have experienced childhood sexual abuse, will provide an overview of extant research and provide guidelines on how Sports Psychologists can support athletes in disclosing these experiences, where relevant. Specific topics addressed include understanding the impact of child sexual abuse, using a trauma informed approach in sport psychology, managing legal and psychological boundaries when working with those who have experienced sexual abuse, when and how to refer on for additional support, liaising with child protection, therapeutic and criminal justice systems, and accessing supervision. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their own attitudes and feelings about sexual abuse, anxieties about how to respond to disclosure and the implications of disclosure, how disclosures might impact on them as psychologists and in turn impact on how they respond to those making disclosures, particularly if this is the first disclosure. The workshop aims to equip participants with the interpersonal skills to respond to disclosure and feel more confident in managing disclosures.

McElvaney, R. (2023). Childhood sexual abuse, In T. Hanley, & L.S. Winter (Eds.), SAGE handbook of counselling and psychotherapy, Sage Publications.
McElvaney, R., Lateef, R., Collin-Vézina, S., Alaggia, R. & Simpson, M. (2022). Bringing shame out of the shadows: Identifying shame in child sexual abuse disclosure processes and implications for psychotherapy, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37 19-20, NP18738-NP18760, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/08862605211037435McGill, L. & McElvaney, R. (2022). Adult and adolescent disclosures of child sexual abuse: A comparative analysis, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38, 1-2, 1163–1186
Manay, N., Collin-Vézina, D., Alaggia, R., & McElvaney, R. (2020). “It’s complicated because we’re only sixteen”: A framework for understanding childhood sexual abuse disclosures to peer. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 1-29.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520933052McElvaney, R., Moore, K., O’Reilly, K., Turner, R., Walsh, B. & Guerin, S. (2020). Child sexual abuse disclosures: Does age make a difference? Child Abuse & Neglect, 194121.McElvaney, R. (2019). Helping children tell about their experiences of sexual abuse. Child Abuse Review, 28, 166-172.
https://doi.org/10.1002/car.2559McElvaney, R. (2018). Grooming: A case study. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse. https://doi.org/10.1080/10538712.2018.1554612McElvaney, R.& Culhane, M. (2017). A retrospective analysis of children's assessment reports: What helps children tell? Child Abuse Review, 26(2),103-115 doi.org/10.1002/car.2390
McElvaney, R. (2016). Helping children tell about sexual abuse. Jessica Kingsley Publications.

•Pre-Congress Workshop 2: Monday, 15.07.2024 from 10.00 am – 12.30 pm

Best practice coaching in E-Sports, Katharina Hänsch

Contrary to regular athletes, E-athletes are often required to maintain maximum concentration over the extensive period of time. Online and offline qualifications as well as E-tournaments regularly last up to twelve hours.

"How do E-athletes manage to stay and maintain focused and perform at their best over such a long period of time?" During the associated workshop this challenge will be examined using the best practice example of a young EA SPORTS FOOTBALL CLUB professional. Participants will be given insights into applied sports psychology work with e-athletes. Those will include but are not limited to conveying the specifics on E-sports and coaching in E-sports, present a best-case coaching and share the professional practice strategies. Participants will also be encouraged to become active coaches themselves and develop approaches and interventions of their own for a given situation later to be discussed in the course of the workshop.

In the context of the given case, teaching methods such as energy- and break- management as well as theory and graphs about concentration and focus will be presented and the implementation of the applied methods will be demonstrated by virtue of visualizations.

The "change and resource timeline method" will be used to work out how a competition can be divided into different phases of concentration and consciously mastered using the available resources. For instance a competition day is e.g. divided into multiple consecutive phases requiring extremely high concentration „in game“. During phases of low concentration e.g. in half time breaks conscious mental recovery or emotional regulation can be achieved by an individually developed breathing rhythm. Furthermore highly stressed body parts such as eyes can be selectively targeted to recover using „in game“ micro breaks. In addition, the implementation of an anchor or ritual to return back to the optimal competition tension after relaxation is developed and practiced. After the presentation of the case and the interventions, the practice strategies, the procedures and the special features of sports psychology work in E-sports and with E-athletes will be discussed.

•Pre-Congress Workshop 3: Monday, 15.07.2024 from 10.00 am – 12.30 pm

My best tools for coaching elite athletes and elite teams on the road to the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris! Peter Haberl

The first part of the workshop addresses three problems sport psychology consultants will encounter from a mindfulness and ACT perspective, when working with individual athletes in preparation for the Olympic Games. Problem one is athletes often fail to understand the emotional challenge the Games will provide for their performance. Problem two is that athlete inadvertently attempt to use mindfulness as an emotional control strategy rather than an attentional control strategy. And problem three is that athletes fail to understand that mindfulness in this context is first and foremost a practice. Guided by a clearly defined Theory of Performance Excellence (see Poczwardowski & Aoyagi 2021 and Haberl 2021) participants will get to experiment with best tools to address these three problems in coaching elite athletes on the road to the Olympic Games.

The second part of the workshop addresses some of the psychological challenges faced by elite team sports on the road to the Olympic Games. From a psychological perspective, teams often prefer the role of the underdog. Yet, elite teams often find themselves in the role of the Olympic favourite. Another challenging role is the role of being the defending Olympic Gold medallist. Elite teams are expected to win, anything but a medal is considered a failure, pressure is unavoidable. Teams that are expected to win the gold medal face a unique set of psychological circumstances that can affect their performance at the Games. Participants will come away with an in-depth understanding of the unique psychology of elite teams at the Olympic Games. This workshop will explore the psychological landscape of team sports and how that landscape changes from initial preparation, to pool play, to knock out rounds. Participants will get to experience various tools to navigate this unique landscape in the preparation of optimal Olympic performance.

Registration-fee: 70 Euro (only for already registered FEPSAC Congress participants)