SportsPsychologist.com Blog by Dr Victor Thompson

A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke, by Ronald Reng, today wins the British William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2011. Reng tells the story of the German goalkeeper Robert Enke, his life and tragic death by suicide in November 2009. A national hero, he appeared to have it all. His teammates and management had little idea that Enke was battling depression for some time. The book serves as a reminder that top sports people can struggle too, just like the rest of us, and need to have access to psychological help. Such help needs to be based on what helps people address their psychological problem (e.g. as endorsed by the NICE Guidelines for the treatment of psychological disorders in the NHS in England) and does so with an understanding of their life as a sportsperson. Dr Victor Thompson Clinical Sports Psychologist www.sportspsychologist.com

Sports stars, footballers and managers are human too. What I mean by this is life still happens to them. Challenging life events or experiences still happen. So, just like the rest of us, they end up in challenging relationships, enter into marriages that break-up acrimoniously, have loved ones who get sick with nasty illness, cancer or mental health difficulties. They can experience accidents and get into car crashes like we all can. Just like the rest of us. What we see is them performing on the pitch or under the spotlight. What we don't see is their life outside those 90-minutes a week, when they are training, at home, with their family, at the hospital…. We see them composed, focused, coping, performing athlete. This is what we expect. We don't see the struggles, challenges, emotions, arguments, angst, doubts, fears. Who expects this from high paid stars doing what we dream about doing? Sports stars are able (mostly) to cope with competitive pressures and they can appl