The profession of sport psychologist in competitive sport from the perspective of practitioners

The Bologna Accord offers prospects for developing university curricula that more narrowly focus on an occupational field. However, these need to be based on knowledge about requirements, potential areas of activity, and employment opportunities. Despite an initial study by Allmer, Schlicht and Singer (2000), sufficient data for the field of applied sport psychology are lacking. Applied sport psychologists were therefore questioned online about their own educational background, the competencies the field requires, their own areas of activity, and job perspectives of the field. Data indicate the importance of psychology, although access to the field is also possible from sport science. Respondents emphasized sport-psychological and psychological knowledge as part of the professional competencies. Most respondents were active in various occupational fields, and within sport psychology they were primarily active in individual consulting. They were optimistic with respect to opportunities for themselves and also for future sport psychologists, but were also dissatisfied with the financial situation in the field. Developing sport psychology university programs seems appropriate, but as a discipline sport psychology has to define uniform professional qualification standards as well as to stay connected to psychology.