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Clinical Sport Psychology will provide readers with an assortment of tools to use in evaluating and working with athletes. The text addresses a range of athletes’ issues in an informed and integrated approach to sport psychology. Rather than focusing on one problem area, one modality of intervention, or one aspect of professional practice, Clinical Sport Psychology blends grounded theory and sound research with effective assessment and intervention practices, presenting empirically informed intervention guidelines specific to various needs of athletes. This text provides the foundation needed for working with athletes experiencing a range of nonclinical, subclinical, and clinical issues. Readers will learn to thoroughly assess athletes, identify and understand their needs, and appropriately intervene with each athlete—unless a referral is necessary to better meet an athlete's individual needs. Clinical Sport Psychology contains the following features: - A thorough explanation of the Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment (MAC) approach to enhancement of sport performance - A detailed examination of the empirical support for traditional procedures in sport psychology - A detailed and practical understanding of the Integrative Model of Athletic Performance (IMAP), which integrates clinical and sport science - A firm understanding of the Multilevel Classification System for Sport Psychology (MCS-SP), a model to classify the wide range of athletes’ issues - A clear organizational structure from theory through intervention, including special considerations. Clinical Sport Psychology presents a new way of thinking about the psychological processes that are involved in attaining and maintaining sport expertise. The text, based on clinical and sport research, bridges the gap between clinical and sport psychologists by presenting a model that connects athletic performance, basic psychological processes, and relevant empirical findings.

It has been over a decade since the mindfulness and acceptance-based practice models that were originally developed within the mainstream clinical psychology domain were first applied in the sport context in order to enhance the athletic performance and overall psychological and general well-being of competitive athletes. Since that time, as mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions gained empirical support for the treatment of a broad range of clinical syndromes and difficulties, numerous important theoretical and empirical developments have also added to the scientific base for these procedures with athletic clientele and have provided some empirical support for the use of these theoretical models and associated intervention procedures. Thus, the present article retraces the past 11 years to provide a comprehensive update on the state-of-the-science with respect to the use of mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions for the purpose of enhanced athletic performance. The article sequentially discusses the theoretical development of these procedures for use with athletic clientele, provides an overview of the empirical research in both basic and applied science with respect to mechanisms of action and intervention efficacy, and suggests future research directions that may aid in the evolution of this approach.

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This study examined the role of experiential avoidance in the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and worry. The hypothesis was that experiential avoidance would mediate the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and worry. A total of 125 undergraduate participants completed measures assessing perfectionism, experiential avoidance, worry, depression, and social anxiety. A series of regression analyses showed that maladaptive perfectionism and experiential avoidance were significantly associated with worry and that experiential avoidance was a partial mediator in the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and worry. Partial correlations revealed significant relationships between experiential avoidance and worry and between one aspect of maladaptive perfectionism and worry independent of depression and social anxiety. Results suggest that experiential avoidance may be an important variable contributing to the occurrence of worry within the context of maladaptive perfectionism.