Knowing the destination, but enjoying the journey to it- Charlie's route to Sport Psychology
Hello everyone and welcome to the next instalment of the Pathways to Psychology blog.
We feature inspirational colleagues across the Practitioner Psychology spectrum. Our blog writers include trainees and qualified colleagues sharing their learning and advice for the next generation of Psychology professionals. Today we hear from Charlie Cavinder, MSc Sport Psychology, at Liverpool John Moores University. Charlie shares his passion for enabling everyone to thrive in the Sport Psychology field, and poses important questions about spirituality, religion, and followership in this ever growing field. We hope you will find reading about Charlie energising and inspiring.
Charlie Cavinder
MSc Sport Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University
Unlike many, I’ve actually known that I wanted to become a Sport Psychologist from a young age. Around the age of 12, I had two loves: sport and Psychology, and I simply decided to put them together once I heard that Sport Psychology was a profession. From then on in, every decision I’ve made in my career has been made after asking myself one question: Will this (experience, qualification, research project etc) get me closer to my destination?
The early inspiration:
I believe there were two critical moments in my life that ignited my love for sport and my love for Psychology. In terms of sport, I’d go as far as to say I am a distinctly below average athlete. Again, I’m aware that my experience is unusual for those who enter into Sport Psychology, as many have an athletic background before turning to the profession. But that just isn’t me! I never competed in any sport to a good level; I just played sports because I enjoyed them. In truth, I don’t think I even tried to compete. That was until a former PE (physical education) teacher of mine showed me the benefits of trying, and challenged me to do so. I loved sport, but found a new love for it once this teacher questioned my attitude towards it. From then on I saw the joy others got out of competing and trying to be the best they can, in turn inspiring me to try and do this for those in sport.
In terms of Psychology, this was more straightforward. Unfortunately, when I was younger my family experienced some terrible health problems that turned my world upside down. At that age, I just couldn’t cope. It was at this point when I went to see a Child Psychologist, and he completely changed my life. My world turned back to the right way up, and I was simply amazed how someone could completely change your thinking after a few hours contact time. This is when I got invested in Psychology, and it became another passion.
Impactful applied experiences:
At the time of writing, I have almost completed my MSc in Sport Psychology at LJMU (Liverpool John Moore University); having also studied here for my BSc. I thoroughly believe this is the best place in the country to learn about the domain of Sport Psychology, and throughout my time here I’ve been fortunate enough to have many applied experiences.
During my Undergraduate degree, I had the opportunity to work with a Rugby Union club. Here, alongside some fellow students, we were tasked with presenting workshops to the first team players concerning mental health, mental toughness and motivation. For a first experience, the club created a welcoming environment and allowed our group to find our way and build our own relationships with the squad. However, it’s still daunting going into an applied setting for the first time, trying to meet the demands of a performance director. You truly do learn the most from going into the applied environment, and this experience only gave me more confidence for my next placement! This is still ongoing, starting around halfway through the MSc programme, within the sport of Rugby League. This has been another great experience, allowing me to see what it is like for a Sport Psychologist to collaborate with an MDT (multidisciplinary team), and build relationships with those in Rugby League over a longer period of time. I still have a lot more to learn, but this placement has helped me see how Sport Psychology works within the domain on a day-to-day basis. I look forward to the remainder of my placement and sourcing my next applied environments as I look towards the next steps post MSc!
Aside from applied work associated with the university, I have also managed to gain applied experience off of my own back, travelling to St Lucia to undertake a month-long Sport Psychology internship in-between the BSc and MSc. This included work with both semi-professional footballers and cricket players on the island. What I loved about my time here was really the freedom I was given to experiment and try different psychological interventions. I got to attempt 1-1 work, and real team-based interventions. This was daunting at the time, because I hadn’t been used to this working freedom; at this point I’d only ever been told what a team / athlete wanted to work on. But after some reflection on the opportunity I had, and my limited time on the island, I decided to embrace the challenge and deliver what I thought would be of most benefit to each team / athlete. As I was even more of a novice back then, not everything landed perfectly straight away (which is of course to be expected!). This is where I think I adopted flexibility as one of my core values, because I learnt that changing the course of the interventions to something more suited to the clients’ approaches increased the success and impact of my work.
Another challenge during my time in St Lucia, that I didn’t originally anticipate, involved just how much adjusting I’d have to do to acclimatise to the cultural differences. It seems obvious, but the vast difference between my world and theirs was so unexpected. For example, rain was something that was avoided at all costs. Training sessions and even games were regularly called off when I was there, because of rain. Furthermore, the rain didn’t even have to be on the day, it was often one or two days before the event and only ever lasted a few minutes. This was completely alien to me. As someone from the UK, it’s safe to say I was accustomed to rain. I distinctly remember one time where children screamed at me in shock just because I was walking in the rain, they couldn’t believe it! Details like this, and things like the general relaxed attitude coursing through everyone on the island, were things I had to adjust to quickly in order to get my message heard. After observing the expectations and culture of St Lucia, I made my sessions more flexible to last-minute cancellations, and delivered them in a relaxed manner when I did get to have intervention time because I learnt that the athletes responded more to and understood the message I was trying to get across if I acted like they’d typically see.
Research plans:
It remains to be seen yet what my research plans will be. It depends on my next steps, and which of the training routes I will end up on. Currently, the routes I’m most closely looking at are the PhD and the Professional Doctorate. If I end up on the PhD pathway, it’d firstly have to interest me. That way I’d be able to give my all to that specific research. If I go onto the Prof Doc pathway, that’s where I could open up to my personal research plans…
My Undergraduate dissertation aimed to explore the relationship between religion / spirituality and performance. It is largely a novel area in Sport Psychology literature, and I managed to get a world-class elite athlete which made the results really interesting (see Swann et al., 2015 for athlete classification). My supervisor (the brilliant Dr Nick Wadsworth, I cannot recommend his work and him as a person enough!) and I have discussed expanding this to more religious athletes, and that’s something I’d absolutely be interested in doing in time, making sure I can give my best to the research area.
My Masters research project concerned the concept of followership, something which again was completely novel to sports literature. This idea was brought to me by the equally brilliant Dr Gill Cook, and I have loved my time researching it this year! It’s commonly associated with leadership, and therefore ignored. But to be a leader; you have to have followers. So what characteristics make someone want to follow? Or be a “good” follower? I researched these questions using interviews with student athletes, and I’m really interested in expanding this out to competitive athletes in the near future.
To conclude this section then, I guess these are the two areas I am determined to explore as I progress further in my career. I hope to give both my full time and effort to provide the most learning to the field as possible, and get to it sooner rather than later!
Advice for future trainees:
This feels a bit silly considering I wouldn’t class myself as a trainee yet, I’m literally at the start line! I cannot claim a wealth of experience and knowledge, and I’ve many more lessons and failures to come. Nevertheless, I think the most important thing I’ve learnt so far is to embrace everything. Embrace the lessons. Embrace the failures. Enjoy exploring the curiosity you have for Sport Psychology that made you start on the course, or even consider doing it in the first place.
Read as much as you can, and listen to as many Sport Psychologists talk as you can. This will allow you discover the philosophical standpoints you gravitate towards, and helps you identify some early beliefs and values that will form the foundations of your approach to practice. Having some idea of how you see and understand the world helps you feel more authentic and confident right at the start when in an applied setting.
Accept everything you can at the start, and throw yourself completely into everything. As I’ve tapped into above, the best way to learn is on the job, and the best time to make mistakes is early on. Make no mistake, this profession is extremely competitive to the point where much of your early work will more than likely be for free. Therefore, you need to find a way to stand out. Reach out to those already in the industry and make early connections, you never know how these may pay dividends in the future. Be proactive and chase opportunities for yourself by offering your services to any organisations you think might benefit from applied Sport Psychology help. State what you can offer and why it could help, and this might get you in the door for more experience.
Final Thoughts:
Progress isn’t linear by any means. There’s been some highs and days of doubt already for me in the profession, and I know there’s plenty more to come as I’ve years of training ahead! But those highs totally outweigh the setbacks, Sport Psychology is such an exciting field and it’s only getting bigger.
So to the future trainees out there, if you have that passion for it, jump on board and give it everything you’ve got. I guarantee the effort you put in will be rewarded!
Thank you so much Charlie for sharing your experiences and inspiration for future Sport Psychologists. We will be following your career with bated breath to see where you set root and share your passion for Sport Psychology.
Maybe reading Charlie's blog has reminded you of your own pathway to a career in Psychology? Maybe you are a trainee Counsellor, Psychological Wellbeing Worker or a Psychotherapist. We would love to hear from everyone in the Practitioner Psychology field. Get in touch to share your own blog entry!
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