About My Interest in Psychology

Psychology is an interesting field of study that looks into the deeper aspect of the development of life intellectually and emotionally. The field of psychology is broken up into several different and more specific fields. The field of psychology that most interests me is sports psychology!

Sports psychology is the study of how psychology influences sports, athletic performance, exercise, and physical activity. For instance, in baseball, a batter has a different approach when stepping into the batter's box that is influenced by the count of the at-bat. The batter will not step in thinking the same way on a 3-0 count as he would on a 0-2 count. Sports psychology looks at this aspect and studies how the mentality changes throughout these scenarios.

The education that goes into sports psychology is fairly simple. First is to attain a bachelor's degree in psychology which will take 4 years or 8 semesters. Few sports psychologist are able to start their career with only a bachelor's degree so next you will need to attain a Master's in psychology which is an additional 2 years or 4 semesters. Finally, if you wish to further your education, you will need to attain a Doctorate in psychology which is an additional 2 years or 4 semesters. After this you are able begin your career as a sports psychologist.

Jobs in this field of psychology do not range too far away from the main title itself. Sports psychologist is the one job that comes with this degree. Working as a sports psychologist includes either research or counseling. The research side focuses on observing athletes to find out what motivates them to push on and what makes the athlete have such a strong desire to be apart of the "winners circle". However, the counseling side leans more on the side of working with athletes to find out why they are not performing their best, whether it is because of outside influences or personal problems such as confidence issues.

Not very many people know a sports psychologist, but they do play a key role in how professional or college teams perform. For instance, the TCU baseball team has a famous sports psychologist by the name of Brian Cain. He works with the athletes mentally and helps to bring them focused into the scenario in which they are apart of. Another sports psychologist is Dr. Michael Gervais. Dr. Gervais is the sports psychologist for the well known Seattle Seahawks and also works with Olympic athletes. He is the host of the podcast "Finding Mastery" which speaks about how to train your mind to operate at peak performance.

This field interests me because I am a big sports fan and I like to gain knowledge about each sport. Specifically, I like to know how to approach each task in the sport. For example, in football putting together a drive is knowing how to complete a task given several situations. You need to know the difference between play calling on 2nd Down and 3rd Down. In the past, I have had my own experience with sports psychology. My high school baseball team used to participate in Brian Cain's Peak Performance exercises and it helped me to focus on the game and to concentrate on the task at hand rather than be distracted by outside problems. I feel I would be good in this field because I have the basic knowledge of several sports and gaining even a deeper knowledge of each sport and the mentality that comes with it is something that intrigues me.

Sources:
https://www.verywell.com/major-branches-of-psychology-4139786
https://careersinpsychology.org/becoming-a-sports-psychologist/
https://findingmastery.net/about-michael-gervais/