Psychologists in sports contexts: Yes? No? Perhaps?

Abstract

This work provides a reflection about the development of sport psychology as a scientific, professional, and practical domain, emphasizing that mental fac-tors can impact the performance and wellbeing of sports agents (particularly athletes). Specifically, the manuscript is organized into three sections: (a) some important historical events that helped build sport psychology as a sci-entific domain and main scientific and professional associations that con-tributed to spread knowledge and practice of sport psychologists; (b) some data about research and practice of sport psychology; and (c) a reflection of what conditions can facilitate or debilitate the employment of sport psychol-ogy professionals by providing a decision tree (and a related questionnaire) that can help the decision for hiring or not a sport psychology professional.