Assignment 3: Professional Interview

For this assignment, you will interview a sport psychologist who currently works with an athlete or a sport organization.

This assignment gives you the opportunity to explore the practical side of practice within the sport psychology realm, as well as the opportunity to investigate the impact of the therapist’s diagnostic experience as it informs the practice of sport psychology.

While the sport psychologist whom you interview should be a licensed professional with a minimum of two years experience with this population, the individual may be from private practice, community clinic, hospital, or social service agency facility. While conducting the interview, focus on the following things:

• Obtain information regarding the sport psychologist’s theoretical approach to counseling, education history, postgraduate training, credentials, and previous employment history.
• Ask about the sport psychologist’s familiarity with diagnosis and in what ways the sports psychologist’s work has altered his or her beliefs about psychopathology and the change process.
• Ask the sport psychologist to describe both the most difficult and the most rewarding part of working with athletes and sport organizations.
• Provide the sport psychologist with an opportunity to offer any appropriate advice or suggestions to you.

Write a two-page reaction paper in Microsoft Word document format describing your interview. Be sure to specifically address the following questions:

• How did this interview affect your perception of sport psychology practice?
• What information regarding diagnosis in sport psychology was most surprising to you?
• What are some of the similarities or differences between your interviewee’s view of psychopathology and your own?

Create your two- to three-page reaction paper in Microsoft Word document format.