Monday, April 11, 2011

The Clock is Ticking for Tiger Woods

I recently read an article that had interviews with sports psychologists (and other therapists) talking about Tiger Woods and his denial, shame, addictions, etc.

Sharon Chirban, a Harvard sports psychologist, was quoted in the article as saying; "This has nothing to with his swing. He's an emotional work in progress and the strategies he's used before are not going to fix his failings now. You fix it by continuing to work on understanding what led him to the behavior that caused shame and that's an ongoing process."

What I get so frustrated about is that the public perception seems to be that sports psychology (or therapy or psychiatry) is the only way to fix problems like this. That is just not the case.

The problem with sports psychology (or other therapy) trying to fix Tiger Woods' problem is that it's a long-term process. 

But, he doesn't have the luxury of going through years of therapy to overcome what's holding him back. He's a professional athlete who gets paid to perform.  He's getting older, younger players are moving up and if Tiger Woods is going to get back into the game as a driving force, he needs to do it soon. 

Otherwise, he'll stay in his personal nightmare as a has-been.

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