Mental Health in Athletes

Abstract

Sports psychiatry was first introduced in the medical literature at the end of the 1980s. This relatively newacademic field has two aims: 1) to prevent and treat mental problems in athletes and 2) to apply physical exerciseand sports to psychiatric practice as a treatment. Although elite athletes tend to be regarded as very mentally toughindividuals, they are at great risk of developing some mental disorders, such as depression and eating disorders.It has been reported that athletes competing in individual sports are more prone to depressive symptoms than athletes competing in team sports. Eating disorders often occur in aesthetic sports (e.g., figure skating and rhythmicgymnastics), endurance sports (e.g., marathons), and weight-class sports (e.g., wrestling and boxing). In additionto these common mental disorders, athletes are faced with sport-specific mental problems, such as overtrainingsyndrome, muscle dysmorphia, and doping. Although it is now accepted that mental disorders can also occur inelite athletes, for many athletes themselves, mental disorders are still associated with increased (self-) stigma.Therefore, destigmatization is one of the major issues that sports psychiatry should tackle. In this paper, theauthors introduced recent topics in sports psychiatry.