Career termination is considered to be a special transition in the lives of athletes, in which there is a risk of various problems and abstinence crises. A lot of research report that some athletes have experienced certain transition problems and negative emotions at the end of their careers. Athletes who experience hardships and problems at the end of their careers often do not receive adequate social support or rarely seek professional help. Various interventions and support programs are available in sport psychology. According to the comprehensive treatment of athletes and the complexity of their problems at the end of their careers, it is possible to suggest alternative forms of support. In the doctoral dissertation, we wanted to explore some transition factors and athletes' experience after career termination from the perspective of relational family therapy, which represents, with more comprehensive and deeper addressing of transition problems, an alternative therapeutic intervention.
The doctoral dissertation entitled Abstinence crisis in athletes after career termination in the light of relational family therapy is divided into a theoretical and an empirical part. In the theoretical part, we first presented the previous research on the phenomenon of sport retirement, focusing on theoretical approaches, the reasons for career termination, its consequences, and the factors of a successful transition. We continued to address selected factors, i.e. athletic identity, exercise addiction, emotional processing, and abstinence symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, which we explored in the empirical part. In the third part, we presented a model of relational family therapy, emphasizing the relational shift in psychoanalysis and the basic mechanisms of the model. In the last part of the theoretical part, we presented the theological aspect as an integrative part of sport, by analyzing the Bible from the perspective of sport and highlighting longing in a biblical context as a synonym for post-career transition changes.
Then followed an empirical part, which we divided into a general quantitative part and a special qualitative part. In the quantitative part, we were interested in the level and correlations of athletic identity, exercise addiction, emotional processing, and abstinence symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress among ex-athletes. 98 athletes who have already finished their sports careers voluntarily joined the survey. Based on the analysis of the questionnaires, we determined the levels of these factors in the sample, which are quite comparable to other surveys. We further found that there is a statistically significant correlation between the level of athletic identity and the level of exercise addiction, the level of emotional processing and the level of abstinence symptoms, and between the level of emotional processing and the level of abstinence symptoms, in ex-athletes. There is no statistically significant correlation between the level of exercise addiction and emotional processing or abstincence symptoms in ex-athletes.
In the qualitative part of the research, we wanted to better understand the experience of problems and abstinence crises in ex-athletes using the process of relational family therapy. The study included three participants, former athletes who faced problems after the end of their careers. We were interested in the possibility of addressing and solving problems from the relational family therapy perspective, and especially the characteristics and forms of experiencing an abstinence crisis and problems after career termination. We found that the problems and experiences of ex-athletes can be addressed and solved using the model of relational family therapy. We also found that the experiencing of the abstinence crisis can be divided into five main categories. After the end of their careers, athletes expressed problems and crises in connection with bodily reactions (unpleasant organic sensations, changes in bodily functions, poor physical well-being, and injuries), emotional experiences (basic emotions, mental distress, emotional processing, and various other feelings), sports career (farewell to career, athletic identity, and sports practice), relationships (own experience, relationships in sports, family relationships and social network) and occupational economic status (education, profession, and finance).
The conclusions of the research should be understood by considering the limitations, especially regarding the composition of the sample in the first part of the research and the small sample in the second part of the research.
The doctoral dissertation contributes to a better understanding of abstinence crises and problems of ex-athletes, with the possibility of using the model of relational family therapy as a form of support for ex-athletes. The dissertation further contributes to the development of the discipline and the programs that meet or are intended for ex-athletes.
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