Sport and Mental Health: Wavering Between Resilience and Vulnerability

When sport participation reaches competitive levels it can become entangled with stressors such as injury, performance pressures, and vulnerabilities including developing a strong athletic identity that may influence athletesâ experiences with mental illness. A life history methodology was used to explore an elite university athleteâ s experience with an adjustment disorder with mixed moods of depression and anxiety. Seven interviews were conducted and a dialogical narrative analysis was used. The participant developed a strong athletic identity during her sport career which, coupled with a damaging interpersonal relationship, contributed to a period of mental health challenges post-retirement from sport and graduation from university. The findings from this study lead us to question whether the significant support and special access to services provided to university sports stars potentially leaves such individuals vulnerable to feelings of isolation and helplessness once outside the university-athlete bubble and contribute to challenging transitions out of sport.M.Sc