Sports Psychologists

[bkholdem]

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So I had my first session today. Its late, so I'll just give a few details and impressions. I'll keep updating if people are interested.

So the Psychologist I'm working with is trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. He apllies this in a process called Peak Performance Training.

In the cognitive area, I'm starting by learning to become more aware of my thoughts and emotions while I'm playing. What he asked me to do was to keep a journal/log of Events-Thoughts-Emotions periodically as they occur during a typical session. In much the same way I would take notes on poker hands, only I'm taking notes on myself. Once I've become more aware of myself and my thoughts/emotions, I'll be able to start learning how to alter my behavior - the goals being to toally eliminate tilt/steam and put myself in a position to always bring my "A" game.

The other thing he aske me to do is a breathing exercise, I don't know why I'm doing this yet, but I'm lookng forward to finding out. The therapist says he has had a lot of success with atheletes by training them to use their breathing in the most psychologically advantageous way.

Overall I'm very excited about this process. Its not cheap at 200 a session, but I think its well worth the investment.

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I'm very interested in hearing more. If you are so inclined you might want to pick up a workbook or 3 on cognitive behavioral therapy. Also on peak performance, I happen to have one if I remember correctly so there are probably more. Doing these things might give you more bang for your buck and speed your learning curve.