Image description: A photo of Dr Mary Quinton, Dr Grace Tidmarsh and Prof Jennifer Cumming presenting at the annual Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSEP) Conference 2023.
This week, members of the SPRINT Project attended the annual British Psychological Society Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSEP) Conference. This year, the conference was held at The Place Hotel, in Edinburgh.
The team thoroughly enjoyed attending a wide variety of talks, poster presentations, and the conference dinner!
Members of the team also presented and shared their research with conference attendees. Read on for summaries of their presentations and related activities.
Prof Jennifer Cumming spoke about the CARES model in athlete focused mental skills training. Her talk, entitled 'Delivering Athlete-Centred Mental Skills Training: The CARES Model' emphasised how perceived barriers to athlete-centered mental skills training (MST) can be overcome to increase athlete autonomy and confidence in using MST, and importantly, their wellbeing and performance.
Dr Mary Quinton spoke about the links between measures of loneliness, mental health and emotion regulation in students who are also athletes. Her talk, entitled 'Loneliness, Depression and Emotion Regultion of Student-Athletes' called attention to the protective role that cognitive reappraisal could play as an emotion regulation strategy in student-athletes.
Dr Grace Tidmarsh presented research concerning psychologically safe vs. unsafe dance environments. Her talk, entitled 'Behind the Scenes: Understanding Psychologically Safe Dance Environments' drew focus to the necessity of understanding what makes a psychologically safe dance environment across broad contexts and populations.
Maria Kolitsida took part in the 5 minute challenge with her PhD research on dance and mental health. Her talk, entitled 'Is Dance Challenging Our Definitons of Self-Harm?' emphasised the need for a dance-informed definition and understanding of self-harm to better safeguard dance students and guide dance teachers.
Image description: Photo of Maria Kolitida presenting at the annual Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSEP) Conference 2023.
Georgia Bird presented her PhD research on mental health profiles in students who are also athletes in the poster presentation session. Her poster, entitled 'Stability of Student-Athletes’ Mental Health Profiles Over Time' highlighted the dynamically changing needs of student-athletes and how promoting adaptive emotion regulation strategy use could support their mental wellbeing.
Image description: Photo of Georgia Bird presenting at the annual Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSEP) Conference 2023.
Kirsty Brown presented her Masters research on athlete mental health help-seeking in the poster presentation session. Her poster, entitled 'Athletes’ Access to, Attitudes Towards and Experiences of Help-Seeking for Mental Health: A Scoping Review' detailed the findings of her recent scoping literature review, higlighting the factors that may impact upon help-seeking in athlete populations.
Image description: Photo of Kirsty Brown presenting at the annual Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology (DSEP) Conference 2023, with Prof Jennifer Cumming and Dr Mary Quinton.
Finally, Jennifer, Mary and Grace led a workshop entitled 'An Athlete-Centred Approach to Mental Skills Training: Enhancing Delivery and Evaluation'. Here, conference attendees had the opportunity to explore strengths-based, athlete-centered mental skills training and related evaluation practices, informed by the CARES model.
Watch this space for further blog posts about team members experiences at the 2023 DSEP conference, and their recent research!
If you would like to explore our research related to the DSEP conference presentations summarised above, please take a look at our dissemination website page, where you can find links to our recent publications.
You can also get in touch with us by filling out the contact us form at the bottom of this page.
Photo credit: © Craig Watson, Georgia Bird & Erin Sanchez.
Written by Dr Sally Reynard, Research Associate in the SPRINT Project