The use of differentiated frames in sport psychology

Tania Aiello-Vaisberg
Annie Rangel Kopanakis

Abstract

Introduction: Sport psychology is a field of professional activity that was

constituted and developed from the finding that the emotional state of athletes
can negatively impact their performance. When the sport psychologist adopts
the concrete psychoanalytic psychology, as a theoretical and methodological
referential, the necessity becomes evident to seek clinically differentiated
frames which, taking into consideration the particularities of the sports world,
can emotionally benefit the athletes. The workshops Being and Making Doing
the Development of Capacities, founded at the University of São Paulo,
correspond to a differentiated psychoanalytical frame, inspired by the
Winnicottian thinking. They are characterized by the use of mediating
materialities, by in the search for deep emotional comprehension and the
adoption of holding, not the enunciation of interpretations, as the principal
intervention. Objective and Method: The present research has the objective of
investigating the clinical efficacy of the workshops Being and Making Doing the
Development of Capacities in the psychological follow-up on professional
soccer players, using the study of transfer fields which constellate in therapy
sessions held over three months. Results: The results indicate that the
workshops promote adequate protection of private life, which makes them
particularly appropriate for work at sports clubs in which people mingle closely.
Conclusion: The athletes showed a clear tendency to become more united,
more communicative, more self-secure, and less anxious during competitions.
Such changes are associated with the occurrence of significant experiences
which that favor the process of emotional maturing, as well as the strengthening
and integration of self.

Key words: soccer, Being and Making Doing the Development of Capacities,
differentiated clinical frames, psychoanalysis.

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 Introduction

The present study had the objective of investigating the clinical efficacy
of the Workshops Being and Making Development of Capacities in the follow-up
on professional soccer players using the psychoanalytical study of transfer
fields that were configured in group sessions over a period of three months.
This study was performed with the intent to increase the capacity for solidarity,
the capacity for emotional communication, and the capacity for self-confidence,
along a line clearly tending towards the decrease of anxiety.
We will divide our exposition into 4 four parts. In tThe first one, we will
make general considerations on the practice of soccer in Brazil.; in tThe
second, we will describe the Workshops Being and Making Doing Development
of Capacities.; in The third partthe third, we will describe the investigative
procedures with which we gauge the clinical efficacy of the therapy provided,
and.; in tThe fourthlast, we will present our conclusions.

Some considerations on the practice of soccer in Brazil

The signs are very clearobvious that the practice of competitive sports
can favor the emergence of symptoms of anxiety, which increase the incidence
of lesions, as well as possibly interfere negatively in the performance (Ford et
al., 2017), and generate problematic physiological repercussions (Aiello-
Vaisberg et al., 2007; Foster et al., 2019. Systematic revision of the literature on
the theme, produced in Brazil, suggests that the athlete’s anxiety has much
concerned the researchers, due to its evidently problematic aspect (Andrade et
al., 2015).
Initially practiced as an exclusively masculine activity, presently
undergoing an expansion in relation toconcern the participation of women
(Silva, 2015), soccer has, without doubt, affirmed itself as the preferred modality

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among competitive sports practiced in Brazil (Chaim, 2018). In addition, it
seems to be easily associated with dreams of overcoming situations of extreme
material deprivation, which, as we know, are very frequent in the country due to
the great socioeconomic inequality between the middle and disadvantaged
classes (Rodrigues, 2016), which makes surface the figure of the so-called “ball
hero”, representing the poor boy who, thanks to his psychomotor abilities, can
become a millionaire international soccer star. Thus, not much effort is required
to conclude how anxious the young athletes in process of formation can
become, once their sports performance can decide not only their own destinies,
but also those of all their family members.
Implanted Rooted in the contemporary world, the practice of soccer
certainly reflects the contradictions Brazil is going through in its post-colonial
geopolitical condition, as it is exploited in economic and political interests, as for
example, demonstrated in the study by Streapco (2010), which focuses on the
incredible growth of the city of São Paulo since the end of the 19 th century, in
light of the constitution of the three principal major local teams. However, the
awareness of the amalgam of the ulterior motives and the passionate link of the
players and the fans, does not impede our reflection on the meaning that
soccer, as well as other competitive sports, can unveil, as cultural activities
which, in the Winnicottian thinking perspective, represent sophisticated forms of
childplay.

In this manner, we can say that it is possible to see the playful potential,
at the very root of soccer in practice, in which the competition and the rules play
a significant organizing role, which can be compared to the challenge which
form introduces in the field of several arts. Nevertheless, this does not prevent
us from perceiving that the sport has deteriorated, placing itself as a mere
competition which that seeks to proclaim the superiority of some at the expense
of others, parodying a humanely needy form of experience. As a collective sport
which permits utmost focus on individual acts, soccer therefore highlights stars
and losers, who can limit themselves with merely narcissistic clashes, not even
coming into contact with the richness in the interplay of the psychomotor
capacities of the players and the object ball, which, due to its characteristics of
mobility, constitutes a challenge.

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 In our view, it is possible to deal psychologically with the effects of
anxiety generated by the literal competitiveness, not confused with the playful
competitiveness, if we can provide the soccer teams with a form of therapy with
which the playful potential of the activity can be recuperated. From the
perspective of Winnicott (1971 - 2017), the arts, culture, and religion are
activities inherited from childplay, occurring in a transitional space. Being a
cultural production, the sport should also be included therein.

The Workshop Being and Making Doing the Development of

Capacities

It would be pertinent, therefore, to enquire about the possibilities by in

which we could overcome the impoverishment of soccer, deteriorating in terms
of a grossly competitive practice, being sold as merchandise, by returning to it
its playful, ludic potential, which, worthy of note, harmonizes with the
spontaneous gestuality gesture and with a more authentic personal positioning
and less dissociated, or in other words, with mental health. Keeping this in
mind, we propose a manner of psychological work denominated Workshop
Being and Making Doing the Development of Capabilities (Botelho-Borges and
Aiello-Vaisberg, 2011), keeping in sight the favoring of spontaneous
gestualitygesture, of integration and personal authenticity. This clinical frame
was created at the University of São Paulo, and it is characterized by the use of
mediating materialities, by the adoption of a holding as the fundamental
intervention and by being preferentially performed in a group (Aiello-Vaisberg
et al., 2003a; Aiello-Vaisberg et al., 2003b; Machado et al., 2003).

The Workshop Being and Making Doing the Development of Capacities

was inspired on by Winnicottian thinking, according to which the process of
emotional maturation, which is made when the inherited potential can happen in
a sufficiently good environment, permitting allowing latent tendencies to be
transformed into capacities. The emergence of the basic capacities of
integration, personalization and achievement will permit allow that others, more
sophisticated ones, be constituted, such as the capacity to be alone and the
capacity to feel guilty, which will unfold into the capacity to be concerned and to
feel compassion, which is the basis of ethical sentiment (Plastino,2012).

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 In the scope of emotional care destined for soccer players, the
Workshop Being and Making Doing the Development of Capacities was
organized with the proposition of ludic activities by which the intention is to
constitute an environment sufficiently good to favor the development of
capacities required in the practice of soccer. Therefore, the intention is not to
hone competencies, which are skills learned in an artificial and mechanical
manner, but rather to actively and creatively appropriate a “being and
makingdoing” which emanates from self-experience as the real self. Among
such capacities are those of solidarity and union with the other team members,
the capacity to communicate emotionally, and the capacity of self-confidence,
with which anxiety can be kept at an easily tolerable level.

The research: psychoanalytical study of clinical efficacy

We intended in the present study to deal with the clinical efficacy of the
Workshops Being and Making the Development of Capacities in therapy for
professional soccer players. Hence, it was a qualitative research done using the
psychoanalytical method, such as has been practiced since the perspective of
the concrete psychoanalytical psychology (Bleger, 1963/2007). According to
this theoretical reference, the unconscious should be conceived as a link field,
that is, an intersubjective phenomenon and not an individual intrapsychic
instance. Thus, the appreciation of the transfer fields ensuing over the sessions
can serve as an objective by which it is possible to detect if the process
unwinds into greater or lesser maturation or if the process is temporarily
stagnated.

We distinguished the following procedures in the performance of the

present research: the investigative procedure of research materials production,
the investigative procedure of the register of research materials, the
investigative procedure of the interpretation of the research materials and the
appreciation procedure of the transfer fields before and after the intervention.

The investigative procedure of the research materials production

corresponded to five activities sessions at the Workshop Being and Making

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Doing the Development of Capacities, which were group activities in the
institutional context of a professional Brazilian soccer club.

Subsequently, the investigative procedure of the research materials

register comprised the elaboration of transference narratives of the group
sessions, held from memory after each meeting.

The investigative procedure of research materials interpretation

corresponded to the interpretation of transference narratives in the state of the
cultivation of floating attention (hovering attention as English version) and free
association of ideas (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1967). For this, we based
ourselves on the words of methodological order recommended by Herrmann
(1979): “let it come up”, “take into consideration” and “complete the
configuration of the emergent sense”. Thus, we reached the interpretative
proposition of transference fields which were configurated over the studied
sessions.

Finally, we did proceed the investigative procedure of the transference

fields appreciation, intending to detect if the clinical occurrences happened so
as to promote effective development of the capacities of solidarity,
communication, and self-confidence or if the process remained stagnated or
even regressive, in terms of the surfacing of more immature manifestations.

Once set in motion, these procedures permitted allowed us to reach the

interpretative production or transference fields at the beginning and the end of
the process. The transference fields in practice at the Workshop Being and
Making Doing the Development of Capacities were the following: “The ugly
duckling”, “Men don’t cry” and “The anxious and competitive”. The transference
fields that appeared over the sessions were the following: “Support and
sustenance (nourishment?)”, “Being myself and playing well”, “The athlete and
his or her world” and “Childplay can be reality”.

Below are the definitions of each of these fields:

The field “The ugly duckling” is the one organized around the fantasy/belief that
the other team members are very different and strange, and with whom the
establishment of ties would be difficult.

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The field “Men don’t cry” is the one organized around the fantasy/belief that
strong men do not expose their feelings and fragilities to others.

The field “The anxious and competitive” is the one organized around the
fantasy/belief that anxiety is unavoidable in the soccer player’s life.

The field “Be myself and play well” is the one organized around the
fantasy/belief that it is possible to have good performance seeing oneself and
colleagues as people endowed with subjectivity.

The field “The athlete and his or her world” is the one organized around the
fantasy/belief that the athlete must seek a full life and not one restricted only to
work.

The field “Childplay can be reality” is the one organized around the
fantasy/belief that it is possible to change one’s postures by means of
psychological care.

As one can see, we were able to detect significant changes in the sense
of abandonment of more defensive positioningspositioning (mechanism?) linked
with lack of trust in others, before which protecting oneself and keeping one’s
distance seem to be more adequate behavior, in favor of a more integrated
psychological positionings, which do not consider good performance
incompatible with greater personal integration with feelings and human
necessities. The appearance of the transference field hopeful in relation to the
effects of the study made by psychologists who adopted the Winnicottian
perspective in therapy is noteworthy.

We observed that the development of the capacities solidarity,

communication, and self-confidence became a reality along interesting
pathways. In this manner, self-confidence is apparently linked with three fields
“Be myself and play well”, “The athlete and his or her world”, and “Childplay can
be reality”, as they point towards a greater integration of self, principally mainly
in terms of affection. The view that the athlete must behave as a high-
performance machine is thus shattered. On the other hand, we can consider the
capacities solidarity and communication were favored, as the fields “The ugly

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duckling”, “Men don’t cry” and “The anxious and competitive”, that present
shades belonging to the structure of paranoid conduct, cease to occur.

In this manner, we finalize concluding that the Workshops Being and

Making Doing the Development of Capacities can be productively incorporated
into the psychological care of athletes that practice competitive group modalities
of sports, such as soccer.

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