*Editor’s note* Michele Ionno, our Recover Lead, is a Doctor of Physical Therapist and not a Psychologist nor a mental health counselor of any kind. The articles written during Recover Week may at times reference mental health or mental skills training. When this occurs, it is only Dr. Ionno, DPT, bringing these important topics to your attention. The information should be taken only as entertainment and his opinion but if interested, we are happy to connect you to one of our colleagues in the Psychology profession to explore these topics further. In fact, we recommend each of you include a Psychologist on your Performance & Wellness Team. Do you want to learn more information on the topics we’ve introduced here? Are you are ready to seek the help or services of a mental health clinician? If so, you could start at the American Psychological Association, National Register of Health Service Psychologists, or the Association for Applied Sports Psychology. If you do not find what you are looking for reach out to us and we will happily help you find a licensed provider in your area.
This week we are going to be talking about mental imagery. As you know, a part of our Recover chapter is mental skills and the importance of utilizing the power of your mind to optimize your performance and wellness.
A great refresher on mental skills is the introductory conversation I had with Dr. Jack Lesyk, PhD, who owns and operates the Ohio Center for Sports Psychology.
As you know, the FMR Team is made up of a team of clinicians who all practice “Stepped Care.” This concept describes how we introduce you to topics that are important parts of our work but that sit adjacent to our scope of practice. One of those topics is mental imagery, which is very powerful for both athletes and non-athletes. You can only spend so much time physically practicing and honing skills so utilization of mental imagery can be very powerful!
To help frame the conversation and give you some context for this topic, we are going to talk about two research studies.
The primary article is this one.
Di Corrado D, Guarnera M, Guerrera CS, et al. Mental Imagery Skills in Competitive Young Athletes and Non-athletes. Front Psychol. 2020;11(April):1-7.
The second is a review that describes the neutral foundation of imagery
Kosslyn SM, Ganis G, Thompson WL. Neural foundations of imagery. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2001;2(September):635.
We will discuss this topic and these articles at length on the podcast this week and you are welcome to participate if you have questions about the articles or the application of mental imagery.
Comments