Desensibilización Sistemática para el control de la ansiedad: Un caso en atletismo

Abstract

RESUMEN:El objetivo del trabajo fue aplicar la técnica de desensibilización sistemática a una atleta de velocidad de 19 años (N = 1) que presentaba altos niveles de ansiedad competitiva. Se realizó una evaluación pre y post-intervención, mediante cuestionarios para valorar la ansiedad (SCAT) y sus características psicológicas relacionadas con en el deporte (IPED), así como mediante entrevista para valorar su vivencia del estrés y la ansiedad, y sus estrategias de afrontamiento. La desensibilización sistemática fue aplicada en nueve sesiones, pasando por cuatro fases: 1) entrenamiento en relajación, 2) construcción de la jerarquía de estímulos, 3) práctica en imaginación, y 4) entrenamiento en desensibilización sistemática. Los resultados indican una reducción de la ansiedad y un aumento de los recursos para hacer frente a la competición tras la intervención. Se concluye que la desensibilización sistemática es una técnica útil y eficaz para su empleo en el deporte.

Levels of Somatic Anxiety, Cognitive Anxiety, and Self-Efficacy in University Athletes from a Spanish Public University and Their Relationship with Basic Psychological Needs

“…However, this contribution also has implications at a practical level, since our findings regarding both the orientation to the task and the lack of motivation towards sport are among the great practical contributions of this work. That is, the importance that motivation [9,16] and the motivational climate have in practice, so that if an athlete is task-oriented and motivated, he defines himself as competent according to self-referential criteria, with fewer symptoms of great nervous system activation (e.g., sweaty hands, muscle tension, increased heart rate) before a competition [53][54][55][56][57][58].…”

“…It may be that, as the literature suggests in the context of sport, somatic anxiety is a conditioned response to environmental stimuli (e.g., motivational climate), while cognitive anxiety would be related to personal factors such as perceived ability [49]. Therefore, it is necessary to promote a sports practice focused much more on the process than on the result, which would allow the athlete to face the challenge of the competition as something positive or conducive to his good performance in the competition [42,44,53]. All this translates into an additional positive effect, with the athlete intensifying his efforts to achieve his goal, strengthening his perception of competence and controlling negative emotions effectively [75].…”

“…Within sport psychology, there are numerous investigations that aimed to study the different types of anxiety that athletes can suffer [50,51]. Anxiety is understood as an emotional state characterized by a feeling of apprehension and tension [52,53], while other authors define it [54][55][56] as a subjective feeling of a perceived threat, sometimes accompanied by an increase in physiological activation and understood as an emotional state of negative character in which the athlete feels nervousness, tension and apprehension associated with the activation of the body's arousal system [50].…”

Diferencias de género en el rendimiento físico y la evaluación psicológica en el equipo nacional de atletismo cubano

“…In the field of athletics, there has been a growing interest in studies linking psychological variables to physical performance in recent years (Berenguí & Castejón, 2021;Casado et al, 2014). For instance, (Montoya et al, 2020) investigated the relationship between self-efficacy, mood, and performance in throwing athletes, finding significant correlations between self-efficacy and tension (r = -.479, p = 0.045), selfefficacy and vigor (r = .322, p = 0.192), and self-efficacy and fatigue (r = -.442, p = 0.66), with only the tension correlation being statistically significant.…”