Le suivi psychologique de sportifs de haut niveau : enjeux et réalité

Abstract: In recent years, numerous studies have shown that the intensive practice of sport was not without psychopathological risks. Act No. 99-223 of 23 March 1999 relative to the protection of athletes’ health and to the fight against doping has, for the first time, taken into consideration the psychological dimension of sport regardless of the concept of performance. Since then, the 16 June 2006 decree amending the decree of 11 February 2004 established the nature and frequency of medical examinations under Articles L.3621-2 and R.3621-3 of the Public Health Code. The interest of this review is to allow the athlete, who is an object of so many desires on the part of his parents, of his coach, of the public and of the society of spectacle, etc., to regain his place as an individual within the time of an interview. During this interview the professional will establish a link allowing the athlete to register his sport in a “life project” (athlete, academic, professional, family, etc.) and in a sphere of which sport is only an aspect. By allowing the athlete to “be”, during and after his sport career, the professional will try to locate him/her outside the “sports play-acting”, which is a source of vulnerability to the disease of “doing” (drug addiction, alcoholism, addiction gestures, etc.). Furthermore this interview is also an opportunity to seek personal vulnerabilities and to elaborate a psychopathological epidemiology of high-level sport, which has hitherto not been undertaken. This legislative progress integrated into the longitudinal medical monitoring is an important advance in the care of athletes who have gone from hero status to that of participating in an industry of recreation and sports spectacle. However, these texts leave many issues untreated, more especially that so far this assessment has been launched in a parsimonious and disparate way (method, processes, stakeholders, professional sportsmen, etc.) according to the sports federations and institutions that often resist its implementation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]