Performance psychologists do not necessarily equal performance psychology.

The psychology of performance, as a branch of psychology pretty much is what the title suggests a domain within psychology that focuses on the way the mind works (or needs to work) to be able to perform at a high level when it counts time after time. The ability to perform, when it matters is a key characteristic of many performance environments within human endeavour including: sport, business, surgery, the emergency services, the military, and aviation. Those performers who are successful in these domains, and successful on a regular basis have developed specific strategies to cope with, and excel under the pressure that is associated with performance at the highest level. Many of the psychological strategies utilised to perform when it counts are similar across many performance-focused domains. While the context is different each performance environment is ‘pressured’ and the key psychological skills and abilities that separate the successful from the unsuccessful are relatively similar across the board.

Performance psychologists then, you would reasonably expect are individuals who have significant knowledge regarding these fundamental underpinning psychological factors, and crucially their application across a broad range of performance domains. While this knowledge and expertise is demonstrated by a small number of practitioners (who generally do not refer to themselves as performance psychologists) this specific knowledge and expertise is not the norm. Indeed, in the UK there is no regulation of the title ‘Performance Psychologist’ (a situation that is replicated in many other countries). The lack of regulation of the term psychologist in the UK means that potentially anyone can use this title even though they have not completed any structured or rigorous education and development programme. Employing a performance psychologist, unless professionally qualified (such as BASES accredited, BPS Chartered, or HCPC registered) could put clients at risk. This issue could be even more problematic as practitioners who focus on ‘performance’ can be intuitively appealing to clients because often it is performance gains they are interested in achieving.

As a result, there is a continuing need to educate the end users regarding what the options are, what appropriately qualified is, and crucially why appropriately qualified (beyond the scope of today’s blog post) is what you should be looking for. What can the qualified practitioner do that the unqualified individual can’t? This question, is of fundamental importance. In the UK we have focused too much on telling the industry who they should employ, but not the reasons why. This should be the next step I the evolution of our profession.

What’s in a name? The HCPC’s role in sport and exercise psychology

There is still considerable confusion in the UK regarding the regulation of the use of protected titles and the role of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Recently I was fortunate enough to attend a meeting with HCPC organised by the BPS Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology that provided the opportunity to ask specific questions and to clarify a range of issues. As such, I feel I have much greater clarity regarding the role of HCPC and the regulation of the protected title of Sport and Exercise Psychologist.

I have heard a lot of complaints over the years about ‘why aren’t HCPC policing the profession’? The simple answer is that it is not their job. They are a regulatory body whose main role is to protect the public by enforcing a level of qualification and expertise for anyone who uses a protected title. Their function is about regulating the use of the title rather than a profession per se. The other aspect of their function is the breadth of their role. HCPC currently regulate use of the 9 protected titles across seven modalities of psychology, which is one of 16 professions that they regulate. As a result, it is simply unrealistic to expect HCPC to ‘police’ these professions. What they will do though is investigate (and prosecute if necessary) breaches of the regulations that are reported to them. These complaints can be made by anyone (members of the public or professionals). So, as a profession it is our responsibility to report individuals who we feel are practicing illegally, or deliberately misleading the public. If we don’t take responsibility for our profession no one else will. Also, HCPC are happy to ‘educate’ the media if cases of miscommunication or misuse of the title are reported to them.

The next question is then what constitutes a breach of the regulations? Well, broadly speaking it is one of two things. First, using a protected title (in this case sport and exercise psychologist) and not being on the HCPC register. Anyone who uses the full-protected title (sport and exercise psychologist) or a partial title (sport psychologist or exercise psychologist) is breaching the regulations if they are not on the register and as a result can be prosecuted. The second area is broadly seen as deliberately misleading the public. As far as HCPC are concerned if you say you provide sport psychology services and are not on the register you are implying appropriate qualification which can be misleading to the public, and as a result you can be prosecuted. The implications of this are pretty clear. If you are not on the register and either call yourself a sport psychologist, or say you provide sport psychology services you can be prosecuted – pretty clear so far!

problem and solution concept with yellow road sign

Now though it becomes a little ‘greyer’. The regulations relates to sport and exercise psychology specifically, and not psychology more broadly. This means that you can provide psychological services in the domain of sport (as long as you do not make reference to sport psychology) and that is fine as far as HCPC are concerned. This grey area has led to a proliferation of ‘performance psychologists’ in the field (which is going to be a whole separate blog). So, if you are BASES accredited and you include (sport psychology) at the end of your title that is beaching the regulations, using (psychology) – so a Sport and Exercise Scientist specialising in psychology – is acceptable. As is a BPS chartered psychologist who is not HCPC registered working in sport (but not claiming to be a sport psychologist).
The final point I will make relates to the level of accountability. As far as HCPC are concerned accountability exists at the individual level. So an organisation can advertise for a sport psychologist (and not require HCPC registered status), and appoint an individual who is not legally allowed to use the title. Once the employee uses the protected title in their job they (not the organisation) is breaching the regulations.

If anyone has a specific question about their own circumstances or the process of reporting cases to HCPC please feel free to get in touch.

Shooting yourself in the foot: How anger and aggression aimed at sports officials impacts upon performance

This weekend has seen an unprecedented step taken by amateur football referees in the UK. 18-year old local football referee Ryan Hampsen has led the ‘striking’ of over 2000 local league referees in response to the foul and abusive behaviour they are often exposed to on a weekly basis. This has been further compounded by the high profile case of Leandro Bacuna. The Aston Villa utility player was sent off in last week’s game against Derby County for pushing the linesman following a disagreement (on Bacuna’s part) relating to a decision given by the official. The Football Association then increased the automatic 1-game ban to 6 games due to the nature of the incident.

This behaviour by Bacuna was stupid for a number of reasons. First, there are very few (if any) examples of a referee in football changing their mind after they have made a decision, so ‘having a go’ at the officials makes no difference. However, this statement is not strictly true, as being abusive towards the officials has the potential to backfire by subconsciously impacting upon decision making. While I was at the University of Gloucestershire (UoG) we ran an experiment working with the rugby first team. All of the UoG team were continually encouraged to be respectful and gracious in their dealings with the officials – and crucially not to dispute decisions. What we found was that as the game progressed (and the opposition continued to verbally abuse the referee), borderline decision started to go our way, so abusing the officials has an implicit effect against you. The second reason why getting angry at the officials is counter productive is that it fosters negative emotions such as anger and frustration, which do not facilitate high levels of performance. So while you are potentially influencing the officials against you are also limiting your own performance. Finally, attributing failure and hardship to an external source (in this case the referee) can also be problematic, as you have no control over what the officials do. If you believe they are negatively impacting upon your performance there is nothing you can do to change that. Where as controlling the way you reaction to decisions is in your control, and as a result can be more facilitative.

I am full of admiration and respect for those officials across all sports who give their time (usually voluntarily) to enable people at all levels to participate. They do not deserve, and should be subjected to any kind of abuse. This is obviously an important moral and social issue, but crucially is also a performance issue. Individual who engage in these behaviours are limiting their own performance and need to develop their emotional regulation and self control skills in order to perform to their potential.

Contemporary and innovative practice: CPD in Sport and Exercise Psychology

Across the world a significant time and effort is invested within the profession of sport, exercise, and performance (SEP) psychology in qualification, accreditation, and recognition schemes. Understandably this is very important, we need to ensure everyone who operates under the banner of sport and exercise psychology is appropriately qualified and fit for practice. However, this intense focus on qualification does appear to often be at the expense of continuing to develop those individuals who are already qualified within those organisations and associations. With so much resource and time invested in qualification routes much less is available to continue to develop and evolve those individuals who have met (often assessed at a minimum) the threshold to practice, and that is it. Now some registrations, accreditations and recognitions require individuals to reapply, or to present evidence of continued professional development (CPD) but I would question sometimes how focused these are on the CPD element (rather than practice experience – which of course can be very developmental).

What skills, knowledge, expertise and experiences do SEP psychologists need to develop? What is the best avenue to deliver these? From a European perspective, CPD appears to be dominated by academia. Look at any relevant conference programme and it is dominated by University academics and researchers. Most workshops and sessions are organised and delivered by the same group. This is great for these academics and researchers, but not so great for non-academics. The argument is always ‘you need to keep up to date with research’ but surely the academic world needs to keep up to date with the applied world too? In the USA the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) conference offers a much better service to applied practitioners, and as a result is much better attended by that group. However, at the same time it is the academic community that often are willing to lead on delivering these sessions. For a range of reasons this is more difficult for the ‘purer’ practitioners. So who’s responsibility should good quality CPD be? Is it the organisations and associations that ‘qualify’ SEP psychologists? Should it be sport-specific and led by national governing bodies? Should it be specific interest groups or service providers (such as Institutes of Sport), or should it be more commercial organisations (is there an issue with maintaining a market advantage)?

In reality the answer needs to be all of these, but crucially it needs to be developed in a collaborative manner. One thing I would like to see at some point in the future in the UK is the development of a collaborative annual ‘Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology CPD handbook (either hard copy or virtual) that lists all of the CPD opportunities available to trainees and practitioners. If we could bring together the different stakeholders this could become an amazing resource for the profession in the UK. Something similar could also work in other parts of the world to. By putting the profession first we could achieve fantastic things . . . . . . . I better put it on the to-do-list!