Abstract
Athletic retirement is not limited to being a crisis; it can also be an opportunity for psychosocial development and transition. In this paper, the internal changes which took place during the adaptation process in a retired world-class athlete are discussed after being revealed in the client's dreams and pictures (Landscape Montage Technique) by psychotherapy.
Hashi-san (assumed name) was a world-class athlete of an individual sport (for confidentiality reasons, no specific details can be given). Hashi-san qualified for many consecutive appearances in a top international competitive event and won a medal on each occasion. Over a period of several years, psychological support for Hashi-san took place once a week for 60 min. For the first two years, the focus was on mental training, with an aim to improve Hashi-san's competitive spirit. This support lasted for 73 sessions until Hashi-san's final international competition.
This paper focuses on approximately 80 psychotherapy sessions for athletic retirement which took place after the mental training sessions. The psychotherapy sessions can be divided into four periods: coping with retirement; stagnation and depression; self discovery; and returning to the athletic field as a coach.
The following internal changes in the adaptation process after athletic retirement were identified: 1. retirement ceremony, mourning; 2. self discovery, intrapsychic development; and 3. connecting past and future, self consistency. The three post-retirement periods constitute psychological tasks, which can be used as the basis for a working hypothesis for future athletic retirement research that can be applied to top athletes who have previously committed their lives to their sport.
