Ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal As­so­ci­a­tion’s (APA) Di­ag­nos­tic and Sta­tis­ti­cal Man­u­al of Men­tal Dis­or­ders 5th Ed. (DSM-5), a men­tal dis­or­der is a syn­drome char­ac­terised by a clin­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant dis­tur­bance in an in­di­vid­ual’s cog­ni­tion, emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion, or be­hav­iour that re­flects a dys­func­tion in the psy­cho­log­i­cal, bi­o­log­i­cal, or de­vel­op­men­tal process­es un­der­ly­ing men­tal func­tion­ing.

Men­tal dis­or­ders can af­fect both males and fe­males across dif­fer­ent age groups and eth­nic­i­ties.

An ath­lete’s men­tal well-be­ing is vi­tal to their per­for­mance. As such, they must be cog­nizant of the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of men­tal dis­or­ders in sports, in­clud­ing, but not lim­it­ed to, de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety, and eat­ing dis­or­ders. Fol­low­ing this, an ath­lete should be ca­pa­ble of iden­ti­fy­ing the vary­ing sever­i­ty of symp­toms as­so­ci­at­ed with these men­tal dis­or­ders, for ex­am­ple, the ex­tent of im­pair­ment in their dai­ly func­tion­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

De­pres­sion is a mood dis­or­der whose wide-rang­ing symp­toms in­clude ex­treme feel­ings of sad­ness, empti­ness, hope­less­ness, con­stant tear­ful­ness, re­duced in­ter­est in plea­sure from ac­tiv­i­ties (an­he­do­nia), sig­nif­i­cant weight loss/gain, in­som­nia/hy­per­som­nia, fa­tigue, feel­ings of worth­less­ness, di­min­ished abil­i­ty to con­cen­trate, ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, and sui­ci­dal thoughts.

Symp­toms of anx­i­ety in­volve ex­treme fear, which can be char­ac­terised by an emo­tion­al re­sponse to ac­tu­al or per­ceived stim­uli, whilst anx­i­ety it­self rep­re­sents the per­ceived like­li­hood of fu­ture dan­ger.

Ath­letes may al­so ex­pe­ri­ence symp­toms of de­pres­sion and anx­i­ety from body sham­ing. Body sham­ing in­volves mak­ing hu­mil­i­at­ing re­marks about a per­son’s phys­i­cal ap­pear­ance, par­tic­u­lar­ly with re­spect to body size and shape. This has im­pact­ed ath­letes un­de­sir­ably and, in many cas­es, re­sult­ed in the de­vel­op­ment of eat­ing dis­or­ders, de­pres­sion, and anx­i­ety.

An eat­ing dis­or­der is de­scribed as a per­sis­tent dis­tur­bance in the in­take of food that sig­nif­i­cant­ly dis­rupts the phys­i­cal health or psy­choso­cial func­tion­ing of a per­son. The most pop­u­lar eat­ing dis­or­ders in­clude anorex­ia ner­vosa, bu­lim­ia ner­vosa, and binge-eat­ing dis­or­der.

Promi­nent US Gym­nast Kate­lyn Ohashi dis­closed in March 2019 that her coach body-shamed her by call­ing her “fat.” She was un­able to com­pete at the elite lev­el in 2015 due to phys­i­cal in­juries as a re­sult of an eat­ing dis­or­der. Sim­i­lar­ly, renowned US Olympic Ice Skater Gra­cie Gold suf­fered an eat­ing dis­or­der and de­pres­sion af­ter she was body-shamed by her coach. This harm­ful­ly af­fect­ed her pre­sen­ta­tion at the 2016 Win­ter Olympics, where she fell dur­ing her per­for­mance.

Oth­er men­tal dis­or­ders af­fect­ing ath­letes, such as post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der or PTSD [usu­al­ly oc­cur­ring af­ter loss or in­jury], can be found in the DSM-5 man­u­al.

Caus­es of Men­tal Dis­or­ders

The prog­nos­tic fac­tors of men­tal dis­or­ders can stem from tem­pera­men­tal, en­vi­ron­men­tal, ge­net­ic, and phys­i­o­log­i­cal fac­tors based on valid re­search.

Men­tal Health and Stigma­ti­za­tion

There ex­ists a stig­ma that sur­rounds men­tal health in con­tem­po­rary so­ci­ety and, by ex­ten­sion, the Caribbean. Ath­letes may be ap­pre­hen­sive about speak­ing out on their men­tal health chal­lenges be­cause of shame, guilt, and/or fear of dis­ap­proval by fam­i­ly, friends, so­ci­ety (fans), coach­es, and team­mates, lead­ing to the ter­mi­na­tion of their ca­reers and a loss of iden­ti­ty.

Rec­om­men­da­tions

· Ath­letes should al­so be ad­vised to seek as­sis­tance from qual­i­fied men­tal health prac­ti­tion­ers, such as clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gists, psy­chi­a­trists, clin­i­cal so­cial work­ers, or men­tal health coun­sel­lors, or to vis­it a med­ical doc­tor for ap­pro­pri­ate re­fer­rals.

· Coach­es and oth­er mem­bers of the tech­ni­cal team must be sen­si­tized about men­tal health is­sues, es­pe­cial­ly as they re­late to the ex­e­cu­tion of their du­ties. There should al­so be clear­ly stat­ed guide­lines as to what is con­sid­ered ac­cept­able be­hav­iour by of­fi­cials, and this must al­so be com­mu­ni­cat­ed to all play­ers.

· Ath­letes are ad­vised to in­form their coach­es, team­mate(s), fam­i­ly mem­ber(s), or friend(s) about their symp­toms. For­mer Eng­land crick­eter Sarah Tay­lor recog­nised the sup­port pro­vid­ed by the Eng­land and Wales Crick­et Board (ECB), for­mer head coach Mark Robin­son and team­mates as she ad­dressed anx­i­ety chal­lenges.

· Ab­solute ma­tu­ri­ty and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty are sine qua non when ad­dress­ing men­tal health is­sues in sports.