Self Aware Sports Psychology
The Impact of Self Awareness

Many limit their concept of self awareness to their behaviours and how they are perceived and experienced by others. This level 1 is of course vital. So if I have a tendency as a coach to be curt and more critical when I’m stressed, it’s vital that someone tells me about how they experience this.

Level 2 self awareness goes beyond the behavioural to explore the relationship dynamics that come into play in our day to day interactions, and especially when stressed. To illustrate I’ll give you a down and dirty overview of a practitioner dynamics model we explore on the Self Aware Sport Psychologist. 

The Drama Triangle (Karpman, 1968) 

The drama triangle is all about how you get your needs met; a fundamental of survival. As we grow through adolescence and into adulthood we all develop habitual ways of getting these needs met. The drama triangle gives three ways of doing this, and we all can use all three, but we all may have a preference – so as you read this start thinking about which approach you identify with.

1. Assertiveness – the ability to say what I want  in a direct way, but also to do it in a way that allows me to listen and take on board other people’s perspectives.
2. Care and Concern – the ability to look after others and to nurture.
3. Openness and Vulnerability – this allows us to be cared for, to enter into relationships without rigid barriers.

All of the above work together when you are at your best, however, under stress, you’re likely to veer beyond equilibrium towards an overreliance on one or other approach. So let’s look at what can happen:

1. Assertiveness morphs into ‘Persecution’. Not that you become Attila the Hun incarnate, but that you become less open, less caring, and get your way by driving your point home. My son knows exactly how that feels when I’m having a bad day, and he says that whatever he does isn’t good enough.
2. Care and concern changes into an obsession with helping people who actually don’t need help. This is called ‘Rescuing’. But in this moment the helper really needs to help! So this can be seen in professional situations when sport psychs or Performance Lifestyle advisors can get overly stuck on how nasty and insensitive the coach is being. If your professional style is more support than challenge, it may be that you have a tendency towards rescuing.
3. Openness and vulnerability collapses into self pity, and ‘it’s not fair’. When stuck this is called playing ‘Victim’. Often seen in younger athletes, who haven’t yet learnt that life isn’t fair, and they struggle to find ways to develop ways to overcome these challenges.

So which one of these do you most identify with? And if you’re not sure, just ask your nearest and dearest – I have a feeling they’ll be able to venture an opinion, which may make for a stimulating conversation. This stuff gets even more interesting when you explore how the positions interact with each other – so what is evoked in you if your athlete goes into Victim, and tells you how bad everything is. Odds are that at some point it’ll evoke either your Rescuer, or your Persecutor. And neither will be that useful in being an impactful psychologist, coach, or any sort of sport scientist.

If this intrigues you, you’ll find out a whole lot more at our BASES workshop on March 17th, the Self Aware Psychologist. Click here to book with BASES

 http://www.bases.org.uk/Workshops/Workshop/The-Self-Aware-Sport-Psychologist/721

And click here to read more about it on Istadia: http://www.istadia.com/event.php?eid=202

References
Transactional Analysis - Karpman, S. (1968). Fairy tales and script drama analysis. Transactional Analysis Bulletin, 7(26), 39-43).

William Winstone