The existential approach described by Mark Nesti offers a radical alternative to the cognitive-behavioural model which informs most contemporary applied sports psychology. Whereas standard psychological models of athlete behaviour would advocate appropriate 'mental skills' training, such as visualising the perfect race, to help an athlete overcome performance problems, the existential approach will refer to an athletes unique emotional world to find deeper causes of their limitation. These causes may be only very indirectly linked to the athletes 'sporting' life.
Existential sports psychology has gone out of phenomenological theory and existential philosophy. Mark Nesti's text is the first book to present an overview of this exciting approach. It contains case studies and a framework for psychologists to apply this approach to their work.