How Sports Psychology Can Help Athlete's Beat Mental Health Challenges
By Intermountain Healthcare
Jan 8, 2018
Updated Nov 17, 2023
5 min read
Dr. Ron Chamberlain, director of counseling and sports psychology for Intermountain Healthcare and Dixie Regional Medical Center has seen a growing need for mental health and performance counseling since his time as an embedded sports psychologist at Brigham Young University and University of Washington. During his office hours at Dixie State University and Southern Utah University, as well as at the Health & Performance Center at Dixie Regional, mental health is a constant concern.
“I see athletes getting burned out,” he Chamberlain. “They’re over-scheduling and under recovering. That feeds into some of the mental health issues we see.”
The services available to athletes through the program at the Health & Performance Center at Dixie Regional in St. George are two-fold:
“It’s really an umbrella program with a lot of different services including physicians, sports medicine, athletic trainers, sports nutritionists, physical therapists, and a sports psychologist,” Ted says.
Within that umbrella, the scope of Dr. Chamberlain’s work varies from teaching coping skills to athletes struggling with anxiety and depression, to assisting others through the psychological aspects of having a season-ending injury, as well as offering mental training to help high-performing athletes reach even greater heights.