Emotion and Sports Performance - Stages of the SIT Program

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Research suggests a clear link between emotion and sports performance. Stress Inoculation Training (SIT) emerged out of an attempt to integrate the research on the role of cognitive and affective factors in coping processes with the emerging technology of cognitive behavior modification (Meichenbaum, 1977). SIT has been employed on a treatment basis to help individuals cope with the aftermath of exposure to stressful events and on a preventative basis to "inoculate" individuals to future and ongoing stressors. http://www.apa.org/divisions/div12/rev_est/sit_stress.html This response looks at the three stages of the SIT program to help you decide which one is most important.

Stress Inoculation Training (SIT)(excerpt)

SIT is a flexible individually-tailored multifaceted form of cognitive-behavioral therapy. In order to enhance individuals' coping repertoires and to empower them to use already existing coping skills, an overlapping three phase intervention is employed. In the initial conceptualization phase a collaborative relationship is established between the clients and the therapist (trainer). A Socratic-type exchange is used to educate clients about the nature and impact of stress and the role of both appraisal processes and the transactional nature of stress (i.e., how clients may inadvertently, unwittingly, and perhaps, even unknowingly, exacerbate the level of stress they experience). Clients are encouraged to view perceived threats and provocations as problems-to-be-solved and to identify those aspects of their situations and reactions that are potentially changeable and those aspects that are not changeable. They are taught how to "fit" either problem-focus or emotion-focus to the perceived demands of the stressful situation (e.g., see Folkman et al., 1991). The clients are taught how to breakdown global stressors into specific short-term, intermediate and long-term coping goals.

As a result of interviewing, psychological testing, client self-monitoring, and reading materials, the clients' stress response is reconceptualized as being made-up of different components that go through predictable phases of preparing, building up, confronting, and reflecting upon their reactions to stressors. The specific reconceptualization that is offered is individually-tailored to the client's specific presenting problem (e.g. anxiety, anger, physical pain, etc.). As ...