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In this article we will discuss about the use of sports and games for therapeutic purposes.
Today, clinical psychologists are employing games and associated physical activities or athletic performances, broadly speaking recreational activities, as part of psychotherapy. Research findings show that recreational activities have a positive effect on patients.
These activities lead to improvement in self-conception, social skills, cognitive skills, tolerance, etc. Games as part of therapy emerged during World War I but had the greatest impact during World War II. During both the wars recreational activities were used with both physically disabled and psychologically disturbed individuals in order to speed up their recovery and help them to adjust both to the treatment settings and communities to which they would be returning.
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This type of therapy is assumed to provide individuals with an opportunity to release pent- up energy and react to experiences in a less emotional manner. Therapeutic use of recreational activities is a well-planned process.
It often includes assessing the client’s functional problems, stating treatment goals, selecting appropriate activities and interacting patterns. Once a patient’s functional level is improved, the emphasis of the therapy shifts in helping the individual to develop healthy attitudes to leisure, executing skills, rules, values and so on.
Some individuals with physical disabilities or mental impairment live in a community and outside the treatment situations. Today various recreational programmes are planned for them like special Olympics. This is done with a view to provide meaning to their lives, acceptance by normal people so that they may achieve the optimum level of functioning in the society. Thus, we see that the impact of sports on humanity, though subtle, is real.
It has the capacity to provoke, though not glaringly, self-expression, release of tension, opportunity of mastery of self through skills, social interaction, recognition and development of awareness of human potentiality and above all fun. All this makes psychology step beyond the question of the why of play and sports to the how, what, when, where of play.
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Sports psychology is today emerging as an independent branch of psychology. We often hear of psychologists being hired to ensure that different teams do well. This is because today sports is neither a relaxation nor a pastime. Sports and games have become competitive and a lot of investment of money and efforts go into this. Sports stars have become as glamorous as film stars. We see advertisements carrying images of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, etc. Sports in general have become professional and a full time occupation.
Sports psychologists essentially help the team members in maintaining a high level of motivation, discipline and team spirit. They also identify points of psychological weaknesses. For example, one often talks of ‘killer instinct’ which is found in some teams and not in others. Sports psychologists also help the sportsmen to develop ability of concentration as well as values like team spirit, gentlemanliness, etc..