Services

Sports Health Counseling offers various peak performance services. Any service can be completely customized to address your specific needs. For additional information, please see our Frequently Asked Questions.

Competitive Excellence/Mental Skills Training

Collaboration with the athlete to develop a customized program that maximizes the athletes talent and training by assessing proactive versus reactive mental performance skills.

Consultation with Youth Athletes and Parents

As a parent, involvement in your child’s sport experience presents both opportunities and challenges. How you as a parent communicate and react to  your child’s sport involvement makes a significant difference in the quality of your child’s sport experience.

Individual Consultation

Athletes often face extreme pressures and environmental demands that require more depth than traditional performance enhancement skills training. These counseling services address the complexity of the athletes relationships, lifestyle balance,  and personal topics that affect the overall health and well-being of the athlete and athletes support system.

Biofeedback

Emotion drives physiology, perception, confidence and energy levels. Emotional mismanagement disables performance. Biofeedback is an instrument that trains athletes to self-regulate their energy levels by using signals from their own bodies.

Psychophysiological Stress Test (PST)

A Psychophysiological Stress Test is an assessment that provides information to a client regarding their ability to manage and recover from two cognitive stressor tasks and an emotional stressor task. In sport related activities this allows for the client to recognize the link between their thoughts and the perceived stress of competition, and how this inter-relatedness influences their reaction time, the ability to think clearly under pressure and emotional management.  During the test the client is “hooked up” to equipment with electrodes and sensors. This gentle, non-intrusive method presents biological information to the client. The following psychophysiological responses are recorded and measured during the PST, skin temperature (peripheral blood flow); EMG (Electromyography); which measures muscle tension and relaxation, skin conductance, (measures sweat gland activity): breathing rate, pulse rate and heart rate variability (HRV).

After assessing the test results an eight week mental training plan is determined and developed from the outcome of the PST results.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing

Past negative experiences related to an athletes sport that involved traumatic bodily injury or performance failure can adversely affect an athletes future performances. These symptoms have the potential to be resolved through EMDR.

Emotional Management & Recovery Training

Any athlete whose sport activity requires concentration, motor coordination, and recovery will benefit  mentally and physically by applying these effective management skills to their athletic program.

Visualization Skills Training

Many successful athletes have highly developed visualization or imagery skills. Visualization skills are useful to obtain self-mastery over distractions, tactical rehearsal and problem solving, controlling performance arousal and anxiety, improve confidence and positive thinking, mentally practice specific performance skills.

Sport Injury Consultation

Many challenges confront an athlete after an injury and during the phases of recovery. Psychological responses to the injury, social environment, long lasting or career ending  injuries can elicit strong emotional responses.

Individual Therapy for Performance Burn-Out/Slumps

Over training, over scheduling and placing too much importance on each and every result can result in a change of attitude, enthusiasm and motivation for the athlete to participate in sport.

Life-Cycle Transitions in Sport

High school to college, college to the pro’s, pro’s to retirement from sport and into the next phase of a professional career. Transition from one level of sport involvement to another happens for a variety of reasons and present new opportunities and mental/social adjustments.