Palmeiras and the national team player raise the debate on the resistance to sports psychology in football
In an interview with the magazine Scoreboard, striker Endrick sparked controversy by stating that “my psychologists are God and my family”. At the beginning it is a sincere and spontaneous speech from a 17-year-old religious boy, but it becomes questionable due to the addition: «If I have God in my life, I don’t need to vent to someone else who doesn’t want to know my parents or myself. I just have to talk to God and pray.”
It’s okay to understand that you don’t need a counselor, go without therapy, or feel fully welcomed by your family and religion. Not all emotional problems require medical attention, and spiritual support can offer satisfying answers to the typical afflictions of a teenager, even one who faces pressure from fans and the press so early.
The problem with Endrick’s speech is that, in a sense, he shows contempt for the work of psychologists, as if being an “unknown” professional invalidates medical treatment. In psychology, precisely because these are scientific methods taught by someone with emotional distance from the patient, impersonality is essential to obtain good results.
It must be considered that the striker of Palmeiras and the Brazilian team is only 17 years old. Because of his inexperience, he may have gotten confused with words in an attempt to extol the importance of religion and family in his career. However, although unreasonable, his statement about psychologists carries with it an old prejudice in football circles against psychology.
Several professionals, especially coaches and managers, have already rejected or neglected the work of sports psychologists. In the last two World Cups, the Brazilian team, under the command of Tite, had no psychology professionals in its delegation. Another former national team coach, Dunga has always been critical of the role of psychologists in sport, claiming that athletes “don’t open their hearts to people they don’t know”.
On the other hand, the figure of pastors and religious leaders is common in club and national concentrations. Psychology professionals working in the field observe that players who are very attached to religion generally have the most restrictive approach of psychologists, as if emotional treatment and spiritual support are mutually exclusive.
However, from the moment football began to become aware of the need to pay attention to the mental health of athletes, there are several cases of players who have begun to treat anxiety, phobias and depressive states with psychologists and have obtained results not only in life personal, as well as his performance on the pitch. In the final of the last Libertadores, for example, the attacking midfielder Arias, one of the protagonists of Fluminense’s season, thanked the club’s psychologist for preventing him from abandoning his career after the loss of his grandmother.
Sports psychology does not cancel or intend to hinder the religiosity of athletes. On the contrary, he often uses faith as a stimulus to awaken self-confidence and self-knowledge. Endrick also received psychological support at the Palmeiras base. That didn’t make him any less religious.
Speeches like that of the young star only contribute to the stigmatization of professionals who have become increasingly indispensable in high-performance football. Psychologists cannot be diminished by religion. And that the adults responsible for counseling Endrick, whether personal, emotional or spiritual, use the unfortunate statement to guide him on the importance of psychology to athletes’ mental health.
Source: Terra
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