Forums

Well I guess I should start things off as I am 'to blame' for the topic area. I think one of the reasons that ACT is interesting for applied sport psychologists is that many of us have spent time working with athletes looking to improve their concentration - especially when anxious. The idea that athletes might be more distractible when anxious is again something which matches my applied experience. Rather than write an essay I think there are some issues which might be relevant to a discussion forum: 1. The authors of ACT (Eysenck and colleagues) suggest that it is important to adopt 'process pure' tasks to gain more insight into the ways in which anxiety impairs central executive functioning. Sport performance is anything but a process pure task - there are loads of variables impacting on performance! Can we reliably and validly test the theory at all? 2. We are currently doing some work with golfers using gaze training (visual attentional control training) to see if we can get them to use more effective gaze strategies when anxious - hopefully therefore maintaining effective attentional control when under pressure. We have had some success - but clearly anxiety has effects beyond those impacting upon visual attentional control (e.g., cognitive intrusions). How do we ensure that we don't neglect these other concerns? I could bore everyone with more issues given that I have spent much of the last three years testing this theory and attempting to understand how it might impact upon my practice. However, I am not as cruel as that and I also have to start packing for a 6 month fellowship in Hong Kong - leaving Friday! I look forward to reading any comments ... Best wishes, Mark