Centre to help athletes with mental health issues
In 2014, university athlete Krista Van Slingerland described her spiral into deep depression and selfharm while she played basketball for the Carleton Ravens, a team she eventually left.
“The police interrupted my suicide attempt a few months later. I’m not sure I had the courage to actually go through with it, but I was desperate to make the hurt go away. The reaction of my friends and family, those who had loved me at my worst, served as a wakeup call,” she wrote in a blog post.
She said her understanding of the “mental toughness” required to be a top athlete left her unable to admit she needed help.
Today, Van Slingerland, a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa who has made mental health and sports her academic focus, is co-founder of Canada’s first centre for mental health and sport with Natalie Durand-Bush, professor in the School of Human Kinetics at uOttawa. The centre is aimed at helping athletes, like Van Slingerland and many others, who struggle with mental illness.
The Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sports offers specialized, integrated mental-health services to Canadian competitive and high-performance athletes and coaches with a focus on treatment and research. It comes at a time when there is a growing movement to end the stigma around mental illness, and a recognition that athletes face unique pressures.
It will serve a growing need. Durand-Bush, who, along with teaching at uOttawa, has a private practice in sports psychology and counselling, said she has noticed an increase over the past decade of mental-health issues faced by athletes and coaches. She and her colleagues increasingly see children as young as eight who are involved in highly competitive and specialized sports seeking counselling to deal with anxiety and other issues.
“Early specialization in sport is hurting our kids. By the time they are teenagers, they are burnt out.”
The centre, which officially opens Sept. 7 at the House of Sport inside the RA Centre, integrates specialists such as psychiatrists, psychologists and other professionals to deal with the mentalhealth needs of high-level athletes. For now, it will only treat athletes and coaches over 16 who compete at the provincial level or higher. Treatment of younger athletes will likely come in time, DurandBush said.
“We wanted to provide a safe haven (for athletes) to be able to access services quickly that are really sports-centred. All practitioners either have a sports background or experience working in their own practice. That is what makes it unique.”
Luke Richardson, an assistant coach with the Montreal Canadiens who with his wife, Stephanie, founded Do It For Daron after the loss of their teenage daughter to suicide, said he is impressed with the concept.
“Especially in sports, people think they are physically tough and can withstand a lot of excruciating exercise and pain. Well, that is different from mental stress. It is a tough, fast world right now, and I think the more support the better,” he said. “It just seems that if we are going to ask people to talk about it, I think we have to offer services. This is a step in the right direction.”
Part of what will make the centre unique is that the care will be integrated, said Durand-Bush. Psychiatrists, psychologists, physicians and others will all have a specialty in sports, and will work together and adapt care plans over time. Some of the care providers will be available through telemedicine. Researchers will also be part of the team.
In addition, the centre will have an “adopt an athlete” program to raise money to contribute to the cost of care for athletes and coaches who might not be able to afford the pay-for-service program.
Van Slingerland said if such a centre was around when she was struggling, “I think it would have encouraged me to seek support sooner.”
Tom Hall, who won bronze in the C-1 1,000-metre canoe competition at the Beijing Olympics, said the centre would have helped him when he struggled after leaving his sport.
Hall, who has written about his struggles, is currently national manager for Game Plan, a collaborative program run by the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Canadian Paralympic Committee, Sport Canada and the Sport Institute Network that helps athletes transition out of sports.
Hall said there is a growing understanding of the many transitions athletes experience, including changes within their sport, injuries and retirement, and how difficult they can be. The work he is doing overlaps with services offered at the Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sports.
“It comes at a really opportune time.”
While high-performance athletes have specialized needs and circumstances, Richardson noted that people from all walks of life need and often have difficulty accessing mental health treatment.
“Sports can magnify things in a good and a bad way. Hopefully, this does it in a good way to get some more government funding and create more spaces like this. If it can get some legs and traction, it should be everywhere.”