The Mind Room

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com It only takes two fingers to count the number of sport psychologists I’ve spoken to about their involvement in coach recruitment. I talked to the first of the pair, Alex Auerbach, last year, as part of a conversation in which the ex-Toronto Raptors Head of Wellness & Development revealed how his behaviour-based...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Bodies strewn across the turf. Players locked in thousand-yard stares. This wasn't how the last day of Northampton's season was meant to look. The end of the 2021-22 campaign will live with Jon Brady forever. His side were seemingly set for automatic promotion from English football's League Two. 25 minutes into...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com “I was interested in how could we move away from the experience of sport psychology we'd had - that I didn't think was particularly impactful - to one really focused on what I believed was the essence of what we were all trying to do, which was drive performance on the field.” Simon Middleton doesn’t waste words...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Business development. Entrepreneurship. Marketing. Not three of the skills you’d necessarily associate with becoming a sport psychologist, but a trio of competencies that are increasingly important for students and trainees to understand. That’s the view of Dr Nick Wadsworth, psychologist and senior lecturer at...

Childish. Emotional. Tiresome. Whatever your take on the antagonism that marked the end of the fourth test between England and India, it’s difficult to argue that the episode has done anything other than intensify the mental battle that will play out during the series decider at The Oval. Predicting how the two teams will psychologically prepare for the fifth Test is trickier, though. In this epis...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com “We don’t lack care, but we lack coherence…there’s a lack of clarity, shared language and understanding…and it creates some cracks that might be not beneficial for the players and staff who actually need support.” Leif Gunnar Smerud might be the only coach in Europe with a UEFA Pro Licence and clinical psycholog...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Editor's note: a quick reminder that you still have a day to claim 25% off Mind Room Membership! Just hit the button below to activate your discount (and enjoy the podcast & article!)  “ Clubs say to coaches, ‘You’ve go to manage all the players, the 50 staff that we have and manage up to the CEO and across’…but...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Over the course of the 2023/24 season, Spurs defender Christian Romero travelled 162,000km to and from matches for the London club and his country, Argentina (that’s over a third of the way to the moon, for those that like a slightly tangential, space-based barometer). Almost two years on from the FIFPRO report...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com It’s hardly news to say that sport has an identity crisis. Article after article berates teams for failing to support athletes seeking to understand who they are away from the field of play. But how can coaches and backroom teams provide the type of help which will turn the tide? It’s a question football needs t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com “There’s a robotic element flooding in…where’s the freedom in that football match? The players are scared to death of making a mistake.” Gary Neville, speaking after the Manchester derby, April 2025 Pundits don’t always get it right, but Gary Neville’s comment seemed to strike a chord with viewers who had the mi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com “Imagine if you're offered a job where you're going to work six days a week, you won’t decide when you take holidays, you're going to have to travel twice every second week at least - spending significant time away from home - and we'll give you a one-year or possibly two-year deal, but you’re going to have to p...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Visual awareness. Decision making. Problem solving. Just three of the terms bandied around on a regular basis when it comes to 'training the brain'. But what are athletes and clubs concentrating on when it comes to identifying and honing cognitive skills? To answer the question, I spoke to Slawomir Morawski, fou...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com “I've talked recently to sports psychologists in high-level positions within professional sports teams who are facing increasing pressure…to try to better objectively test what they're doing with teams.” Jim Doorley is speaking about an issue that’s affected many of the sport psychologists I’ve talked to over th...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com “My job is made easier…because I've got coaches that care about people. That’s why I constantly keep coming back to the leaders of programs or the leaders of the environment and the way they operate. In blunt terms, it either helps or hinders your ability to get some of your messages across.” Andrea Furst shoots...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com It’s a situation that will strike a chord with many sport psychologists. You start working with a team, hear all the right noises before joining, only to discover on day one that your handover notes are essentially a blank piece of paper. The turnover of staff in elite sport, together with the tendency to focus...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Artificial intelligence (AI) helps sports teams with analytics, training plans and recruitment. But is there a space for AI in a psychological context and, if so, what would that look like? In 2023, Markus Raab, Robert Schinke and Charles A. Maher wrote a paper on how technology and artificial intelligence can s...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com In 2018, basketball player DeMar DeRozan wrote a one-line tweet: ‘This depression gets the best of me’. Shortly after the small forward’s post, Kevin Love penned an article revealing he’d suffered a half-time panic attack during a game against the Atlanta Hawks. Fast forward seven years and around a third of tea...

 ‘Players were telling us that they felt more resilient, more confident and had better communication skills, just over one season, and some of these players can be in academy systems for 10 years, so there's a lot of time to develop them.’ Tom Mitchell’s words are striking. The Doncaster Rovers academy psychology lead is talking about the impact of a programme he’s spearheaded at the English Leagu...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Claim 20% off an annual Mind Room subscription - offer expires on December 24! “Does anybody think that Premier League football teams are taking on psychologists who are fundamentally saying the way that your coach is treating players is dehumanizing and should stop?” John Amaechi’s question is simple but stirri...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com In last week’s newsletter, I highlighted some key takeaways from my discussion with Dr. Brett Haskell, the National Women’s Soccer League’s clinical mental health and performance director. Now - for Mind Room Members only - I’m releasing the full interview. The podcast is an in-depth exploration of how Brett is...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Half-time team talks are the stuff of legend. Alex Ferguson’s ‘hairdryer’ treatment, which the former Manchester United manager reserved for unsuspecting players during his time at Old Trafford, was once seen as a vital reminder of dressing room discipline. Steven Gerrard’s infamous Istanbul speech, credited wit...

Psychologists fighting for fair pay. ‘Fake psychs’ exploiting the lack of regulation governing sport psychology in the UK (and elsewhere). The exorbitant cost of training to become a sport psychologist. The issues facing the sport psychology profession are well documented ( we’ve covered a whole host of them on The Mind Room over the last couple of years ), but they deserve continued scrutiny. In...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com “I remember just being on the wards during chemotherapy, off my face on drugs, in so much pain and just sobbing uncontrollably at this documentary: that was when I was like, ‘Okay, we're doing this’” The idea of finding hope in moments of despair might sound hackneyed to some people, but Jake Woods isn’t one of...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Teenagers on multi-million dollar contracts. Transfer systems (at least in the US) allowing college athletes to switch teams at the drop of a hat. Social media distractions - and scrutiny - coming from every possible angle. The power dynamic governing the coach-player relationship is always in flux, but there’s...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com Elite sport’s struggle with issues such as identity is nothing new, but efforts to instill the type of self awareness and self reflection that might help young athletes are still something of a postcode lottery. In this Mind Room podcast episode, Jonathan Harding speaks to Julia Eyre, a sport psychologist workin...