1. Moving Beyond the Comfort Zone: Delivering Sport Psychology Differently
Jo Batey

2. Mount Makalu Makalu - 8,462m Expedition objectives:
To have summiteers.
To set a world record by being the first team to traverse the mountain.
Makalu is without doubt one of the hardest propositions of all – Sir Edmund Hillary

3. The Clients Needs ‘do some sport psychology with the squad’.
Help build team cohesion.
Facilitate communication between personnel from different forces who may not know each other.
Help them to prepare to perform well.
Provide the leaders with tools to help them manage conflict.

4. Can I meet my client’s needs?
My Response….
What do I deliver?
How do I deliver it?
Can I meet my client’s needs?
AAARGH! – This isn’t just mental skills!
My comfort zone
Cognitive-behavioural model
One-on-one situation
Fairly directive
Relied heavily on mental skills development.
Previous work with teams - educationally based workshops.

5. Group Acceptance/Buy-in
The attitudes and opinions of others may determine the effectiveness of ASPs (Martins, Akers, Jackson, Wrisberg, Nelson, Jason Leslie & Leidig, 2001).
Male athletes generally have a stigma about seeking sport psychology services. Especially male athletes who play physically demanding sports involving possible injury (Messner, 1992).
Terms such as ‘sport psychology skills’ or ‘psychology and counselling services’ may be less attractive to male athletes than phrases like ‘mental toughness strategies’ (Maniar, Curry, Sommers-Flanagan & Walsh 2001).
First impressions and perceived effectiveness of Performance Enhancement Consultants(Lubker, Watson, Visek & Greer 2005).

6. Group Acceptance/Buy-in
Gender
Numerous studies have reported individual differences in people’s attitudes about sport psychology consultants as a function of gender (e.g., Brewer, Brewer & Linder, 1992; Maniar et al., 2001; Martin et al., 1997, 2001; Van Raalte, Wrisberg & Martin, 1994)
Knowledge of the sport
Consultants interviewed by Gould, Murphy, Tammen and May (1991) said that to be most effective experiential knowledge is needed.
Buy-In
The research element of this project bore out that acceptance and buy-in was high.

7. Buy-in – How?
Opening presentation was couched in less stigmatising, more acceptable terminology.
‘Hanging out’ - Literally (Andersen, 2000).
Demonstrated a willingness to engage in and understand their world.

8. Atypical client/team
The individuals’ overriding identity was not one of athlete/sportsperson. This had numerous ramifications.
Preparation
Commitment
Knowledge

9. What did I do…?
Sought out the services of a nutritionist and sport and exercise physiologist.
Asked the more experienced climbers to lead a session on their experiences of previous expeditions.
How did they prepare?
What did they learn?
How would they prepare differently?

10. Issues of Contact 1) Lack of opportunity to provide support.
2) Change of personnel at each camp impacting on continuity of delivery.
3) Providing support from afar.

11. What did I do…? Invited contact outside the training weekends.
Provided follow-ups for each session and distributed this to all team members whether they were present at the weekend or not.
Replied to their website blogs.
Provided and satellite phone support.
Provided dictaphones.
Team cards.

12. Reflections on Working differently
This experience has shaped my choices for future CPD and how I want to practice as an ASP.
Has made me reflect on my own education and training and led me to be involved in research exploring practitioner development.
Has reinforced the value of reflective practice and made me engage with how to reflect differently.
Made me aware of how little literature there is on working differently in ASP as well as in preparing athletes for major events, working with teams and working in extreme environments.

13. The Outcome
3 summiteers from the Makalu La team (including the first female to summit Makalu).
South East ridge team were in position to summit and traverse the mountain when bad weather stopped them approximately 30 minutes from the top.
One fatality.
One case of severe frostbite.