Dr. Petah Gibbs joins in for a nuanced discussion on the ethical boundaries professionals must navigate when using the Athlete Apperception Technique (AAT). Drawing on his psychoanalytic training and practical experiences, Dr. Gibbs underscores the importance of self-awareness in interpretation—warning that a practitioner’s own unresolved issues can unconsciously influence how they perceive and respond to clients’ narratives. Using vivid examples, including those involving transference, misjudged family dynamics, and ethical dilemmas in sport settings, he illustrates how personal biases can distort the intent and meaning behind clients’ responses to the AAT prompts. The conversation further highlights three critical safeguards against such pitfalls: thorough training, consistent supervision, and a strong habit of reflective practice. Dr. Gibbs stresses that ethical use of the AAT—or any psychologically informed tool—requires more than theoretical knowledge. It demands ongoing mentorship and peer consultation, especially when faced with uncertainty. The episode reinforces that while the AAT can provide meaningful insight into an athlete’s internal world, it must be employed with humility, caution, and a deep commitment to professional ethics. His reminder that “although the AAT was not designed to be a clinical tool, it can be a clinical tool, but it can only be a clinical tool to a clinical psychologist in that sense” emphasised the boundaries of the Sport Psychologist's role. Even though the AAT may offer insights into personality traits or behavioural tendencies, it should not be mistaken for a diagnostic instrument unless used by a qualified clinical psychologist. In this sense, Dr. Gibbs’ words underscored not only the purpose behind the AAT but also the legal and ethical frameworks that must guide our practice, especially when operating outside clinical psychology.
Discover more about certain aspects of ethical boundaries and practical examples for sport psychology practice and referrals by AAT Supervisors Professor Mark B. Andersen and Dr. Daryl B. Marchant here below:
Andersen, M. B. (Ed.). (2000). Doing sport psychology. Human Kinetics. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2001-00237-000
Andersen, M. B. (2005). Sport psychology in practice. Human Kinetics, Cop. Order it on Amazon.
Marchant, D., & Gibbs, P. (2004). Ethical considerations in treating borderline personality in sport: A case example. The Sport Psychologist, 18(3), 317–323. https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.18.3.317
Mathias Alberton (00:03)
Hello everyone, this is Mathias Alberton. I'm the creator of Martial Attitude. This is Martial Attitude Voice. We are exploring a bit of sports psychology, but we're exploring as well discipline. And through a series of podcasts that you can browse, we have tapped into an incredible technique, which is called the Athletes Apperception Technique. It's a projective technique which shows athletes or clients, if you wish, different set of images so that they could create a narration around them. And through this conversation, the practitioner can learn a bit more about the athletes, the athletes can actually learn a bit more about themselves. Therefore, believing that behind, beyond every athlete, there is an individual, there is a human being, there is a person. The idea is to grasp a bit more insights of a technique which is great to open conversation with new clients, but also specifically talking about sports psychology, having the opportunity to speak with different athletes about the different aspects of their lives, regardless of performance, regardless of results and so forth. And we learn that is particularly or also useful with the younger athletes because the Athlete Apperception Technique, AAT in short, has been developed by Dr. Gibbs under the supervision of Professor Andersen and Dr. Marchant, also with a set of children images. you know, it's a very wide range of options to tap into psychological means. Today we are back on the record with Australia, with Dr. Gibbs, and we wanted to expand on what we already said before, let's say, talking about a bit the disclaimers which surrounds or should surround the use of the AAT.
Dr. Gibbs, hello again, welcome back to the podcast.
Dr. Petah Gibbs (02:29)
Hello. Hello, everyone listening. Good to be back and chatting.
Mathias Alberton (02:36)
How is th weather in Australia now.
Dr. Petah Gibbs (02:40)
Well, we're three days away from official winter. So, which is, I know, quite strange to people who live in the Northern Hemisphere. it's, you know, we don't have, I mean, southern Australia. We have an island below Australia, one of the states, Tasmania, which is maybe that gets a little bit colder, but Melbourne's one of the coldest areas. But of course, it's not cold like London, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't, never get any snow or anything. don't think it. Yeah, I, I, I'm not in my lifetime. I mean, I'm nearly 60, so I've never seen snow here. So it gets, it just gets a little chilly. Not, not that bad, but anyway. So yeah, it's a bit, a bit weird. Kids are in school because, you know, we're heading into winter, so they have their summer holidays from Christmas and January is the middle of summer. So we're backwards, but not in everything we do. In psychology, hopefully we're not backwards in psychology. Even the water, the water goes around the toilet bowl the other way, which I think some people know about, but that's a real thing. A lot of travellers check that out.
Mathias Alberton (03:45)
It's also true that Australia and the US are at the forefront of sports psychology, always been. mean, kind of you took the lead on the social science of sports psychology. So do you know why? Why did it happen?
Dr. Petah Gibbs (04:26)
Yeah, mean, a lot of you, think a lot of, mean, I don't think you can discount Europe there. Like, you know, I think there's, there's a ton of amazing information out of Europe. I think, you know, like even in sport, Australia, probably considering our population, which is what 24, 25 million, we kind of hit above our weight.
So to say, you know, like in Olympic games and Commonwealth games and things like that, we tend to do reasonably well, you know, for the size of the population. It's sports a huge part of our culture. It's I know it. I know it is in most Western cultures and probably every culture across the world. You know, it's a bit like soccer and basketball, the big sports. But sport in Australia is just a massive part of who we are and how we define ourselves, who we follow and root for and all of that. I think born from that, the interest in sports psychology has been huge because people want to be involved in professional sport and not everyone can be an athlete. So we have a lot of people interested in psychology that think, I'd like to combine my love of psychology with my natural love of sport. Unfortunately, there just aren't tons of sustainable paid jobs just because the number of opportunities that are available in professional sport clubs. Yeah, the amount of research is, I think, pretty significant. My PhD supervisors have contributed to that, especially Mark Andersen. He's probably written about 400 million journal articles and himself, he probably wrote 500 to 600 over the weekend, I'm sure. He's a prolific researcher.
Mathias Alberton (06:38)
So, to, let's say, begin with talking about the AAT, what do you think are the most common misconceptions that practitioners might have about the AAT when they first encounter it?
Dr. Petah Gibbs (07:01)
Yeah, that's a really interesting question. The thing that comes off the top of my head is, to be honest, is I hope that they have some in some trepidation, some fear of using a technique and to say to reinforce like they shouldn't because it's not a it's not a scary technique. But I think every I mean, personally, I think in professional life, everyone should have some trepidation. I find it's probably the same across all fields. Those professionals that jump in with 100 % confidence and don't question anything are probably the most dangerous professionals in any field. As I always think of rock climbing, I used to do a lot of rock climbing and abseiling, rappelling you know, was qualified to set up climbs and take groups out and things like that. And I was always taught you should be a little bit nervous every time you do it. The minute that you get comfortable where you're not nervous, you're not triple checking your knots and the climb and the rope and everything like that. If you're 100 % comfortable, then you can become dangerous.
And so I was always taught that because yeah. so every time, even though I did it hundreds and hundreds of times, set up climbs was always a little bit nervous. And I think that's a good place to be. And I think personally, I think that should apply across all fields where you should, you should have a little bit of trepidation enough to keep you little on edge. I think it applies to athletes too. And you know, professional athletes, you know, those that are cocky and have no fear and all of that.
You know, once you're in the game, if you're experiencing flow and you're in the game and all of that, that's not the situation. But going into a game, the preparation, that's that what some people will call anxiety, but that's an arousal of like, I hope I do well today. I've really got to work hard. You know, that trepidation. So I think, yeah, practitioners hopefully using any test. And I'm not just talking about the AAT, I'm talking any test.
Just stand on the side of, you know, not fear. I'm not saying that. Don't be fearful of using any type of psychological assessment, but stand on the side of caution. You know, it's just a tool. not going to give you hundred percent accurate. No tool is going to give you a hundred percent accurate response in psychology. It just gives us a piece of information.
Mathias Alberton (10:00)
Also because we have spoken or we have in previous conversations, we have inferred to a certain degree that, you know, the AAT is not a diagnostic or clinical tool. So part of the things that would be interesting to unpack today is exactly that fine blurred line between the ability of the practitioner, the use of the tool, the choice of using one tool over another in order to achieve what. And in, let's say, sports psychology practice, there might be, and this in clinical practice, there might be other tools that I don't want to dwell into too much, but like the Minnesota, like the Beck's Anxiety Inventory or the California Psychological inventory, which are more specifically designed to find, you know interpersonal behavior, social interaction, anxiety symptoms, or to point out personalities ⁓ issues. So the AAT shouldn't be considered one of these and shouldn't be considered or confused with the, let's say, the famous and in some ways even notorious application of projective tests such as the Rorschach in forensic, for instance. So we wanted to pinpoint a bit the differences here. So for instance, I would have a question such as how should we understand the difference between interpretation and inference when working with a client's AAT responses?
Dr. Petah Gibbs (12:10)
Yes, I think always has to come down to the level experience of the practitioner, I think. So there will be some that have used projective tests that are well versed in interpretation and have really studied for years and years and years and had lots of practice on the interpretation of responses. The manual for the AAT gives lots of clues and lots of, know, based on the data that was collected and how it was developed, you know, things that are likely responses will tap into. But, you know, I think it always comes down to the clinician or the practitioners own experience, you know, so somebody knew using it. There's no reason why somebody can't pick it up and, you know, read the manual and start using it.
But always with care, know, it's I think I've said that in previous chats we've had, know, it's number one rule, do no harm. Be careful, you know, just be careful. You don't want to make jump in, make any type of decisions that that may potentially be wrong or in in effect harmful to you, to the person you're working with.
Mathias Alberton (13:42)
Also, you mentioned care, and particularly in high performance environments, which have a component of clinical assessment. So I'm saying NFLs, leagues, there is a sports psychologist very possibly, but there is also a bunch of other professionals around there. So in what ways could the AAT be misused if not used due care whilst using it?
Dr. Petah Gibbs (14:33)
I think to make interpretations without the right experience, which is probably what I said in my last answer. think it's just the care. mean, psychology, I guess it's like every other field. You know, have, you know, probably a majority of well-meaning practitioners that want to do the right thing and help the people they're working with. You have a lot of rogue people, you know, who maybe are overly confident and jump to conclusions, you know, or see things that they don't even question if they are there or not.
Yeah, just always, always approaching it with knowing that your level of comfort with whatever tool you're using, whether it's the AAT or anything, you know, a NEO or a personality assessment or any of the sports psychology specific assessments or tests. you know, just think people just understanding their own level of comfort in looking at it, getting the results and then interpreting it and applying it to the person that they're working with.
You know, it probably, it probably falls, probably bumbling around this, but it probably, it all falls under the, the guise of ethics. You know, ethics is a very big part of psychology. You know, the, the field I work mostly in now, which is law, you know, the ethics is a massive part of law. It's, it's one of those, it's one of those unique ideas, ethics, this philosophical idea of, well, you can try and be very ethical and you can follow ethics, but you can also push the boundaries of ethics all the time. And it's very tempting sometimes to push the boundaries of ethics. So becomes it's a hard thing to be for authorities to manage is our practitioners in our field being ethical in the way that they use tests and interpret tests and work with clients and the things they say and all of that, you know.
So it always comes down to the individual practitioner. There's a good ethical understanding of. I have used this, for example, have, you know, might be I've used this test, I've got a reasonably good idea of this test. I think I'm comfortable with my analysis of it. Therefore, I'm not going to do any harm to my client.
Mathias Alberton (17:18)
It is also interesting because now in the format we are discussing the thing. So the podcast form. Let's say we don't share now with the audience images of videos of any sort of supposed to be session using the AAT. But if the audience could just imagine that you are shown a set of images and you respond to them, according to your own fantasy, imagination, mood. Then, of course, you undertaking the AAT might have behaviors, have tick movements, tensions in the eyes, in the face, in the hands, mannerisms that my change over the time of the technique is delivered. And these are cues that could be significant, could be completely meaningless, and is just another layer of interpretation for the practitioner to acknowledge. This is a bit of the boundaries, the ethical boundaries I believe you were talking about. it is, there is always a potential risk to overreach, let's say, try to stick to the client's context first and foremost, not to misuse, to pathologize, to overinterpret, to impose meanings to things that actually do not have any meaning. So what's your take upon this?
Dr. Petah Gibbs (19:28)
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. While you're finishing there, I was trying to think of an example, an extreme example is probably a good example to go by. know, I think in one of the episodes we talked, you know, talked a little bit about transference and counter-transference as well. You know, which fit, which are a way of thinking and working, you know, and it's definitely more psychoanalytic, but it applies in just general psychology as well. You know, what are you, what are your inner thoughts and feelings and views and biases? How are you imposing them on what your client is saying and then interpreting from that perspective? You know, so if you've got mummy and daddy issues, and anytime your client says anything about mum or dad, just in general conversation, are you jumping on that? know, and there's like, well, you know, become really fascinated with, what is the relationship with mum and dad there? Because unconsciously you might just be jumping to that because that's a real interest to you, because that's a real personal thing to you, you know. And so I think clinicians are going to be really aware of that. know during my training in psychoanalysis, you know, that we worked really hard on understanding that. ⁓ And really. You want to be listening to your client, but also we worked really hard on and it got to the point where it kind of drove me mad a little bit and probably drives every person in training mad where before while you're formulating a question.
You've got to instantly think about why am I formulating the question? Where is this desire for this question to be asked coming from? And is this is this coming from me wanting to know this personally or unconsciously, or is this question coming from the point of view of this is the most appropriate or best question to be asking the client to keep the conversation moving along? What's good for the client? Or is it of a perverse fascination for me? You know, so I remember having a client as a trainee and they were talking a lot about dad, blah, blah, blah. And I myself personally have a lot of daddy issues, you know, from my own past, and I've had a lot of therapy on that. So I'm hyper aware of daddy issues. So when these clients talking about daddy issues, my mind was racing early days of like, Wow. You know, just in that split second while they're finishing what they're talking about and you're preparing to ask the next question. ⁓ My mind's racing about, so do I want to go down this track of what he's talking about with his dad or is this being driven by me and my personal needs? know, so I think that's that that's You know, so to put it like, as I said, right at the beginning of this little spiel like a very extreme example, somebody thinks, I guess we see this maybe sometimes in education, know, so you might have a client who's talking, seeing these images and just giving stories and they're saying, yeah, and the coach was really yelling at them and this adult and the themes are coming out like this adult really hates me and this adult's really abusive towards me and this coach and my dad hates me and he's sitting in the, you know, this is a person on the track, you know, these are stories to their images, this is a person fallen over and their dad's going to be furious at them and they get into trouble when they get home and you start getting all these responses from the client about, you know, anger and hatred and all of that. You know, for people who may mean there might be something in that, absolutely to interpret and analyze and discuss further. But for some people who are inexperienced, they, you know, they can be really quickly judging like, wow, this sounds like, you know, is there abuse at home? Is there, you know, something more sinister happening here rather than this is a, you know, this is that this kid's fear of letting down an adult. So that's that's kind of I guess that's where, you know, that's an extreme example. But I think you have probably all heard stories of school teachers that have, you know, little Johnny or little Mary have sat and or just made it one comment. And that's led to like an investigation on the parents being abusive at home when they probably hasn't paid anything, you know, just because it's there's a fear of this is leading somewhere. So when it comes down to that interpretation, it's just got to be real care about it. You know, taking taking your time and taking your time and being careful about what you're interpreting and really understanding the ramifications of that.
Mathias Alberton (24:52)
And to avoid this trap, I see few options. Of course, one is proper training. The other one is having good supervision whilst training and still having conversation with other professionals after that you have finished your training and keep on learning possibly. And then the role of reflection, which is a practice that practitioners should ⁓ spend time on, which is writing a bit of reflection piece after they have met their clients every session. As you were talking, I was thinking about these three. Is any of these three particularly important to you, has been proven particularly important? Or there is something that I'm missing here that should be important to point out as well?
Dr. Petah Gibbs (25:50)
What you said was summed it up better than I could ever sum it up. And I, you know, probably because I talk too much, but it was succinct and absolutely. I agree to the point. It's, it's about your level experience, you know, that you can't just do a three or four year psychology degree and then you're ready to work with clients. Bang, you're out the door. There's your piece of paper. Thanks. Go and start fixing people. Unfortunately, probably a lot of the population think that's what it is. That's what psychology is, you know, like that's what teaching is. That's what, you know, but in most fields, you know, you get your piece of paper and. It's not that the piece of paper doesn't mean much. The piece of paper does mean much. It shows that you've sat there and you've understood some theory and you've really read the theory and you got it. But what comes next is the experience based on that core that you've got there. And for psychology, you know, the training programs are longer. You know, I think.
Remember teaching undergrad psychology and you'd look at a room of like 400 undergraduate students, knowing that, you know, probably out of 400 here, at least in Australia, probably out of that 400, maybe five or six might go on to a master's program and maybe one will go into a PhD program simply by the numbers. There's just, you know, it's a real pyramid as far as you get, you know, only a certain number of people get through.
But a room of 400 people doing intro psych, you might only get 200 that, you know, that go on to do year two, you know, lot of them drop out after year one or because it's like, God, psychology is boring. I thought it'd be interesting. But all we learn about is rats and stats like what rubbish, you know, so. Yeah.
I guess it is about the experience and the training that comes, you know, knowing that it's a long haul. It's not just four year degree or a three year degree. It's then, you know, doing some further work and your supervision work and all of that. And the supervision is a massive part of that, you know, really relying on your supervisor and getting that feedback. And even when you're out and you've got your certificate and you can go out and practice, it's always I mean, that again fits back into the ethics too, you know, it's part of the whole ethical program of whatever, the British Psychology Society and, know, APA, American Psychological Association. It's part of those ethics there too, is that you should check in with supervisors and continue. You're not necessarily required to, but under law, but, you know, when you got questions, that's the exact time you do it. Because we're human, we're going to make mistakes. So when you got questions or you're feeling a little unsure about where therapy is going, call a colleague. you've spoken to my thesis supervisors and, know, they are always the people that I would turn to if I had questions just working professionally. I remember calling Daryl when I was working with a couple of professional athletes and I was in a real pickle thinking I have no idea what to do here. I'm really in an ethical dilemma here because I've got an athlete who's telling me that they're not feeling great, but at the same time saying, but you can't tell anyone because this is just between you and me. But I got a head knock in the last game and I'm really been dizzy and all of that.
So I was like, what do I do? So, you know, I called the Australian Psychological Society ethical hotline and said, look, I've got this situation. And they didn't have an answer. They said, well, you know, that's a tough one. You know, you can't really go and tell the coach or the doctor. You know, mean, all I could do is say, I think you'd need to speak to the doctor and be honest with the doctor and tell them this, you know, because it could potentially do some real damage to his health. know, but I called Daryl was, you know, the first call I made was like, what do I do? I'm really scared about this. So ethics and supervision, a really big part of it and your education and your experience here.
Mathias Alberton (30:31)
If given that the AAT is not a clinical tool, how do you think practitioners should frame its use when discussing it with clients, but also with the coaches?
Dr. Petah Gibbs (31:03)
Yes. Well, I'd like to preface that by quickly saying, while it's designed to be a clinical tool, it can be a clinical tool, but it can only be a clinical tool to a clinical psychologist in that sense. You so you can't do clinical work and do diagnosis without having the correct training. I mean, you can, you can, you can have read enough and studied enough and no, like I'm not a clinical psychologist, but I understand the DSM. I understand the diagnosis, all of that, but I'm not allowed to do that. And I wouldn't do it because ethically that would just be wrong. So, but a clinical psychologist who works as a sports psychologist could use the AAT and use it in a as a clinical tool. know, the raw shot is a clinical tool. The TAT is a clinical tool, but it's in the hands of a clinician versus a general sports psychology practitioner. know, so, yeah, I guess I use that term interchangeably. say clinician is in the sense of a professional working in a clinical setting, whether you're a clinical psych or a sport, a general psych or a non-clinical psych.
So again, that kind of reinforces that idea of what is your expertise. Same with using the children's set. It can be used at a superficial level, I think, but child psychologists are particularly trained to understand what is developmentally appropriate for me to be talking about and me to be measuring versus a general practitioner that happens to come across the opportunity to work with children, but not having any particular specialized training in working with children. That practitioner has to ask themselves that question like, should I be doing this? And I've got to be very careful about doing this. So, yes, it absolutely can be a clinical tool in that sense. So I probably didn't even answer the question there yet. was doing the quick preface, but yeah.
Mathias Alberton (33:29)
It is actually a very important landmark in the conversation what you had just said. So, differentiating between clinical and non-clinical practitioner versus clinical, non-clinical tool per se.
Dr. Petah Gibbs (33:52)
Yeah. So making a clinical diagnosis, if you're a clinical psychologist is appropriate. Making a clinical diagnosis if you're not is completely inappropriate and unethical.
Mathias Alberton (34:06)
This was important to point out again once more. So thank you for that. I was talking about how should practitioners should frame the use of AAT when discussing, let's say, the results, the interpretations, not only with the clients, but with their coaches in case.
Dr. Petah Gibbs (34:24)
Well, some may choose to sit with their clients and go through the results and talk about it. don't think it's always personally, I don't think it's always necessary. It can be just collecting information. It's like, if you're doing any test, you don't have to sit there and say, well, here are your results and this is what blah, blah, blah, blah, blah means. It might just be information for you to be moving the work you're doing along. ⁓ So I don't know how many people, you know, don't think people, majority of practitioners that use a raw shot, for example, would sit there and then go through the analysis of the raw shot with the client.
When it comes to talking to the coaches, it's, I don't want to be too strong in my language, but I will be. But this is my personal professional opinion. Absolutely. There should be no feedback to a coach whatsoever. Ever. To parents. Yes, if the child's under 18, if it's a child, then yes, you need to discuss with parents, but you need to discuss that before with the child saying because you're a minor.
I know our discussions are confidential, but I want to be able to share something with your parents because your parents have brought you here to get some work done. So I'm happy to bring mum into the room and we can discuss this or dad into the room. We can discuss this as a group. But the parents have a right to know what is going on there. You you know, so there's some real fine lines there and some ethical boundaries there. But with, you know, working with an adult like, yeah, I guess I've had bad experiences and I wouldn't be the only person working in psychology. Yeah, I don't now. Like I don't work as I'm not a psychologist. You know, I work in another field now, but this so this is, you know, my kind of my research and my previous experience. I've sat in meetings like a professional professional club and I've sat there with the head coach.
Um, you know, we've got million, million dollar players on the line and I, my job was to work with the players. Um, and then I'm asked questions in the coaches meeting with all the coaches there and the head coach and you know, what about this guy? You're, you're talking to this guy. Um, you know, I, it's always playing coy as like, well, I talked to all, talk to most of the players. Well, are you spoken to this guy? What's going on in his life? I can't, you can't tell him anything.
You just can't because you're breaking confidentiality with your client. So you're breaking an ethical rule one. Secondly, you're breaking the trust of your client, but certainly in sport, is quite probably very well, it is very different than the real world. Athletes talk to each other, teammates talk to each other. If you were to say to the coach, look, just off the record, you know, I think he's a little anxious, but don't say anything. If that ever got back, you're done.
You are certainly done working with that team because the player, if that got back to the player, it gets back to every other player. Don't talk to the psych. Working with teams in psychology is really tough anyway because majority of athletes have, I think, have very little trust in psychologists working with them. If you're employed by the club, which I think is fair. So here is, here's the psychologist employed by the club. I'm employed by the club.
I'm talking to this psychologist who's employed by the club. We're having confidential conversations. How would I be a hundred percent sure that those conversations aren't getting back to the coach? Because in the end, know, coaches are all a little bit nutty at the professional level, maybe at the junior level too, but they are, there's something quite different about professional coaches in the way they think, because they've got very specific goals and things that they want to achieve, e.g. win.
So they'll use anything. they have any, you know, I've had coaches berate me in meetings because they want to know, is he mentally fit to play? Because they think that if I gave them the information, like, I think he's got some anxiety, don't tell him I said that, then they can use that against the player. players don't, players are fearful. I think professional athletes are fearful of seeing a psychologist, maybe less and less every year because it's becoming more the norm and maybe they feel like it's not being used against them. But at the core, you know, working with professional athletes, I still think there's still that level, which is hard to overcome. It's like, I can't have the coach thinking I'm anything but 100 % ready to go. And even if the coach knows I'm seeing the therapist, seeing the club psych, that's dangerous in itself because it shows a weakness.
It's exactly like, where is he? Why isn't he at training? Well, he's at the physio. Well, he's always at the physio. That shows a weakness. Are you injured? Should I have my trust in you as a professional athlete because you're always injured? Oh, you're seeing the psych. Is there something wrong with you? You know, I've had a couple of screaming matches with psychs and I've had a couple of friends who have worked as psychologists for clubs and that have quit because of it.
Because of exactly this, it got to the point where the coach doesn't want work with the club, the psychologist working with the players anymore because the psychologist won't share the information. I need to know if this guy's ready, if this guy's good, which is completely unethical. it's a real sport. Psychology in that sense is really different because in general psychology, you're seeing a client, you're not running into their, you know, they don't have teammates. You're not running into their families. You're just seeing, they just turn up at your door and you have a session and they move on. And that's, you have no relationship with them outside of that. Um, in sport, it's very particular. And like I travelled with the team. So I went on every road trip and I sat there with them and, know, I worked with maybe four different teams, um, over the last 20 years. So I, I sit and have breakfast with them. sit on the plane next to them. We joke around. We, you know, you develop a relationship, friend, a kind of a friendship, which goes beyond your role as a psychologist. You know, it blurs so many boundaries as Mark Andersen, he's written a couple of amazing books like Doing Sports Psychology. He's talked about that even to the point of you're standing next to naked people. Like I'm talking, I'm sitting there and I've got, I'll have clients walking up to me completely naked from the shower, walking around the shower in the change room, I'll call my name, say, hey, I've got a question. And you look over and they're standing there in the shower with the shower curtain open. You don't see that near the other type of psychology I can't think of that where you're talking to your clients that are naked swimmers, you're dealing with, know, super attractive, you know, and some people think that's controversial to say that, but you've got young, fit, attractive men and women who are professional athletes talking to you about their personal life. Mark's written chapters on this in his books, you know, really, I think it scares people to talk about stuff like that, but he's right to talk about stuff like that. So I know, again, I'm getting way off the topic, but, you know, it all comes down to understanding the arena you're in and the relationship you've got and the world around it. yeah, in answer to very short answer to that question, personally, I don't coaches are a huge problem for sports psychologists because they honestly only care, 99 % only care about winning or losing.
Mathias Alberton (43:01)
I have then, let's say, a last question, if you wish, to wrap this conversation. What about the referrals then? Because then, you you're there as a sports psychology, you intercept some meanings, some issues that might be beyond your reach, because maybe you are a trainee sports psychologist because you are new to the profession, because you just decided to approach the profession in a certain way, not in another. Or because exactly, for as clinically driven you might be, you are not so comfortable in working with children because you prefer to work with adults, whatever the reason might be. Then there is that moment where, well, you don't speak with the coach, but then you need to refer. How does that work with the AAT?
Dr. Petah Gibbs (44:00)
Thank you. Yeah. And, yeah, and just to clarify with the coach thing, like it's, it does depend on the coach. I had, I worked with a coach who I had a really good relationship with. he actually bought me on when he became the head coach and, because I was friends with him, but he had a, was a professional athlete at a very, I'm talking Olympics and NBA and he had a huge career. So he was very well known professional athlete who then became coach, but he had, I think because of that, he said to me, look, please work and see the guys. I will never. He said that right at the beginning. I will never, you know, that's the right thing to do is set those boundaries right at the beginning. You know, so, you know, they explained to the coach, I can't, I will never share anything with you. Okay. So you need to know that I'm doing my best trying to help this person as best I can. And have them as ready as possible and happy and healthy as possible. Trust me. He was absolutely like that. Is everyone okay? Don't have to tell me their name. You don't have to tell me what's going on. I don't want to know any of that because, you know, I understand you don't want to you can't tell me anything. I just need to know like, is everyone happy and healthy? I'll be like everything, you know, things are going okay. You know, people that are working on stuff are doing good work. Don't worry about that.
You know, so that relationship can be a bit different in respect to this last question that you asked. Absolutely. Like referrals are great. If it's beyond your professional experience or even your level of comfort in dealing with something, yeah, refer on. Daryl Marchant, who I think you've done a podcast with that will be out soon, will out by the time this airs if this even doesn't get thrown on the cutting room floor. These are my ramblings. He wrote and I co-authored the paper here as a journal article out there, know, treating borderline personality disorder. A professional athlete. So this is a high level professional athlete. You know, it was a difficult one, I think, to publish because, you know, even, you know, I've probably identified the coach, a lot of people could quickly figure out what coach I'm talking about. I'm in Australia. talking about somebody who's been, just said has been to the Olympic star and played in the NBA. That whittles it down to about 10, you know, maybe 10 or 20 people that have then gone on to be a professional coach. So it's probably pretty easy to figure out who that is because we work maybe with some famous people at the elite level. You work with famous people. You got to be very careful about what you say, you know, so even publishing this article, you know, it's a very high professional sport, high level professional sport. This was about a player who Daryl was working with in the general sense of like, you know, here's a player has come along to me, he said, oh, you know, I've got some issues I want to talk to you about and blah, blah. But Daryl recognized that there was something well beyond what he could, and he needed somebody, clinical psych to do a proper diagnosis. So he referred them on. So this paper is about that process, about that journey of referring this player on and this player then getting a diagnosis, which was an official DSM diagnosis. And then how to treat that person given that they are working in a high pressure environment like professional elite sport where every time they pick their nose, it's on TV and there's a new story about it.
Mathias Alberton (47:50)
So maybe it's possible to have from you the reference precisely of these two studies you were mentioning. So the swimmer kind of a tricky environment and the case study of referring to a clinician, someone you are working with. If you could find a reference of this, I would like to put them in the description of the episode below so the audience can even poke around and find more resources.
Dr. Petah Gibbs (48:14)
Yeah, absolutely.
Mathias Alberton (48:25)
Well, I again, you know, the more we talk about the AAT, the more intriguing it becomes. I start to believe that really, you know, we've spoken about training supervision, reflection, referrals, clinical, no clinical, how prepared the practitioner is. I start really to think that is appropriate. It would be fantastic for us to start working on a bit of training on the AAT. It might sound a bit self-serving to a certain extent, but I really think that it would be an incredible opportunity for so many practitioners all over, really. Discover more about the AAT and to learn properly, to have a proper introduction to it exposed to some real case studies, to certain real case scenarios to have the possibility to test real case scenarios, your abilities to deliver it, to interpret it, to have some feedback about how you approach the AAT. I think it could be very interesting job to be done. And yeah, I think this is the future of a fruitful collaboration. What do think?
Dr. Petah Gibbs (49:33)
Yes, absolutely. I mean, I'm completely biased, so I think it's an amazing tool. And it's not an amazing tool because we came up with this amazing idea. It's based on a very well-established test over 100 years old that's still very much in use, very respected. We just adapted it for a particular population. It's a great tool.
I don't mean to in any of my ravings, particularly in this episode, I don't mean to scare people off using it. just mean, you know, just treat it with like any psychology test, treat it with some care and some trepidation. Just, you know, and if you're not comfortable. I know if I was sitting listening to this for the first time thinking, that's an interesting thing. I hadn't heard of that tool. I wouldn't mind knowing more, but I'd be too scared to use it because, you know, I don't know enough about that.
You know, is there a workshop where I can sit and I can ask questions and listen and do some get some experience doing some of these interpretations? Like, here's a story. How would you interpret it? And, yeah, I would be interested in that. So, yeah, I think that's along the lines of what you're saying. If that was made possible. Absolutely. I think people just do a little bit of training and get a little bit of experience that way and then gives you a lot more confidence going out and using it on your own.
Mathias Alberton (51:21)
Fabulous. Really, thank you very much for your time. It's never taken for granted. And I really love the idea to have some more in the future. Thank you very much.
Dr. Petah Gibbs (51:25)
Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for your time as well.
Mathias Alberton (51:37)
And thank you to everyone who has been listening to this episode. Of course, if you do have questions about the AAT, we love to answer them. So please let us know what you think about it. If you do have doubts, questions, questions, that would be great to know. And finally, I kind of remind you that I'm Mathias Alberton. I'm the creator of Martial Attitude. And Martial Attitude is also working to implement bespoke training system for visually impaired and blind people to gain more confidence, better posture, optimizing psychological well-being, conducting a series of workshops every Sunday here in London, central London, and it's called the Martial Attitude Training. You know the references on my website. And if you are blind, or you might be interested or you know someone who might be interested as usual, you keep in touch.