Monna Arvinen-Barrow

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Existing theoretical frameworks and empirical research support the applicability and usefulness of integrating mental skills throughout sport injury rehabilitation. Objective: To determine what, if any, mental skills athletes use during injury rehabilitation, and by whom these skills were taught. Cross-cultural differences were also examined. Cross...

Background: Recent literature suggests that active video games (AVGs) may offer potential psychological benefits during the rehabilitation of musculoskeletal injuries and their corresponding deficiencies. Objectives: To review existing literature regarding the potential psychological benefits of AVGs within the context of rehabilitation from muscul...

Context: Athletic trainers have traditionally conceptualized rehabilitation programs in terms of 3 distinct physiologic phases; however, these phases appear to neglect athletes' psychosocial responses to their injuries. Objective: To document injured athletes' psychosocial responses during the different phases of injury rehabilitation. Design:...

Context: Research from the sport medicine professional's (SMP's) perspective indicates that SMPs are often required to address psychosocial aspects of injuries during treatment. However, only a few authors have investigated injured athletes' experiences with these concerns. Objective: To explore injured professional athletes' views on the role o...

Purpose To review existing research on psychosocial factors associated with athlete adaptation to acquired spinal cord injury (SCI). Methods A systematic review was conducted in February 2023. MEDLINE (Pubmed), PsycINFO, and SPORTDiscus databases were used, and peer-reviewed academic journal entries fully retrievable from the researcher’s institut...

The aim of the present study was to identify profiles of elite athlete mental well- and ill-being and study how the profiles (i.e., subgroups of athletes) differed in sport-related demands and resources. A total of 259 Finnish elite athletes ( n = 170 active and n = 89 retired) completed quantitative self-report inventories. Through cluster analysi...

This paper discusses how pedagogical theory can be used in conceptualizing a collaborative teaching development program in higher education. A theoretically driven teaching development program can be of benefit to both the reviewer and the reviewee by providing (a) a foundation for the reviewee to examine their educational content being reviewed; a...

This paper discusses how pedagogical theory can be used in conceptualizing a collaborative teaching development program in higher education. A theoretically driven teaching development program can be of benefit to both the reviewer and the reviewee by providing (a) a foundation for the reviewee to examine their educational content being reviewed; a...

The Journal for Advancing Sport Psychology in Research (JASPR) accentuates the development of research scholarship through highly immersive, mentored opportunities for students to first author rigorous student-led research and serve as gatekeepers (i.e., as peer-reviewers and editorial board members) of scientific knowledge through an innovative st...

Context: A multidisciplinary approach is one of the many forms of professional practice that can be utilized by sports medicine professionals to provide care to injured athletes. While this approach has been empirically supported in the health care domain, studies supporting its utilization in the sport injury rehabilitation context-particularly a...

Leaving sport can be a difficult process for an athlete when the transition happens due to a spinal cord injury (SCI). The purpose of this study was to explore athletes’ experiences of transition from sport due to SCI. More specifically, the study aimed to (a) identify and analyze patterns related to what is happening (and not) in individuals’ tran...

The purpose of this study was to document the lived experiences of flow during an optimal music performance. Fifteen undergraduate musicians ( Mage = 19, 53% male) participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews, where they were asked to describe an optimal performance experience. Results from an inductive qualitative analysis revealed three m...

Monna: My daughter Amie swims competitively. When she was 10 years old, she qualified for finals (top 16) in a meet that included swimmers of all ages from three different states. On the Saturday afternoon of the finals, I dropped her off to the warm-ups, leaving her with her coach. As a swim mom does, I headed to the bleachers to watch her perform...

Aim: The aim of this paper was to systematically review existing empirical literature addressing the use of psychological skills training (PST) interventions commonly employed in sport applied to a music domain. Included PST studies must have an experimental or quasi-experimental design and no clinical or pharmacological interventions and/or asses...

Transition into the new environment and learning context of doctoral study can be difficult, particularly when it involves geographical relocation, a new university, and other major life-related stressors. It is known that a variety of personal, social, and financial factors may impact doctoral student success and attrition. These include feelings...

Context: The use of active video games (AVG) as a treatment modality in the rehabilitation context is increasing. However, little is known about the functional outcomes and psychological benefits of such rehabilitation in college athletes with lateral ankle sprains (LASs). Objective: To examine functional outcomes and psychological benefits of A...

Previous research demonstrates that sport psychology consultants use humor to facilitate working alliances, reinforce client knowledge, and create healthy learning environments. The current study sought to gain further insights into consultants’ reflections on the role of humor, humor styles, purposes for humor, and experiences of humor use. Forty-...

‘Creative efforts’, such as the use of humor, have been found to be beneficial to the nurse-patient, teacher-student, and psychologist-patient alliance. Potentially humor use might benefit the working alliance in applied sport psychology, yet to date there is limited research. Sport psychology consultants (n = 55) completed an online survey that ex...

The purpose of this study was to document the lived experiences of professional cricketers who had encountered a career-ending non-musculoskeletal injury. Three male cricketers each with over nine years of playing experience in professional cricket representing England and Wales participated in retrospective in-depth semi-structured interviews. The...

Assessment in Applied Sport Psychology is a comprehensive resource that will help practitioners gain a deep understanding of assessment in order to build trusting relationships and effective intervention plans that address the needs and goals of their clients.

To date, much research has been devoted to understanding how anxiety can affect sport performance, both in practice and in competitive settings. It is well known that sport has the potential for high levels of stress and anxiety, and that practicing and employing a range of psychological strategies can be beneficial in anxiety management. Equally,...

To enhance the specificity of psychological skills training (PST) interventions, the purpose of the current study was to examine stage of change and gender differences in the combination of transtheoretical model (TTM) constructs (i.e., decisional balance pros and cons, self-efficacy, cognitive and behavioral processes of change) among collegiate s...

This study documented the lived career-ending injury experiences among elite Irish rugby football union (IRFU) players. Three players took part in semistructured one-on-one interviews. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, 1996) revealed that the process of psychosocial injury rehabilitation and the subsequent transition process was for...

Sport injury rehabilitation has moved from predominately physical treatment to a more holistic care. However, limited research has explored the views and experiences of those involved in such an approach. The purpose of this study was to preliminarily investigate sport psychology consultants’ (SPCs’) views and experiences of an interprofessional te...

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the role of swimming on Paralympic athletes' perceptions of self and identity development. Method: A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was taken. During semi-structured interviews, five Paralympic swimmers (aged 20-24 years) were asked questions about their swimming career, perceptions of sel...

The Functional Movement Screen(TM) (FMS) is a screening tool used to evaluate functional movement quality and subsequent musculoskeletal injury risk. Despite recent research on the factorial validity of the FMS, no confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) has been conducted to examine measurement invariance across sex among student-athletes. The primary...

The Perceived Susceptibility to Sport Injury (PSSI) scale is a measure that has recently surfaced in the sport injury literature. The factor structure of the PSSI scale has not been subjected to a rigorous factor analysis; thus, the factorial validity of the measure in athlete populations is unknown. To establish the validity of the PSSI scale in s...

Context: Athletes enter injury rehabilitation with certain expectations about the recovery process, outcomes, and the professional providing treatment. Their expectations influence the effectiveness of the assistance received and affect the overall rehabilitation process. Expectations may vary depending on numerous factors such as sport experience,...

Multidisciplinary team approach to sport injury rehabilitation involves the use of a variety of individuals with different specialties, all of whom work either together or separately with the aim of getting the injured athlete back to the field of play (Clement & Arvinen-Barrow, 2013; Melvin, 1980). Since gaining entry to the sport medicine domain...

The process of transitioning out of sport can be a significant time in an athlete’s life (Alfermann, 2001), particularly when it occurs due to non-normative reasons (Schlossberg, 1984) such as a sport injury. To date, research into exploring transition out of professional sport due to injury (Park, Lavallee, & Tod, 2013; Wylleman, Alfermann, & Lava...

Context: Athletes enter injury rehabilitation with certain expectations about the recovery process, outcomes, and the professional providing treatment. Their expectations influence the effectiveness of the assistance received and affect the overall rehabilitation process. Expectations may vary depending on numerous factors such as sport experience...

The maturation processes of applied sport psychologists have received little research attention despite trainees and practitioners having often reported experiencing challenging circumstances when working with clients. Within clinical psychology literature the self-practice of cognitive techniques, alongside self-reflection, has been advocated as a...

Be prepared to offer not only the physical rehabilitation regimen injured athletes need, but also the psychological and psychosocial support they need to recover from injuries. Here’s a user-friendly introduction to the application and practical use of psychosocial theories and techniques. You’ll develop an understanding of the research that under...

The maturation processes of applied sport psychologists have received little research attention despite trainees and practitioners having often reported experiencing challenging circumstances when working with clients. Within clinical psychology literature the self-practice of cognitive techniques, alongside self-reflection, has been advocated as a...

Study design: Cross-sectional study. Objective: To describe readiness for change and barriers to physical activity in older adults and to contrast perceptions of physical therapists and patients using the Barriers to Being Active Quiz. Background: Regular physical activity is vital to recovery after discharge from physical therapy. Physical th...

Athletic trainers (ATs) have traditionally conceptualized rehabilitation programs in terms of three distinct physiological phases; however these phases appear to neglect athletes’ psychosocial responses to their injuries. To incorporate a psychosocial component into rehabilitation, Kamphoff et al. (2013), suggested that ATs should consider utilizin...

To date, evidence in support of attitudes and beliefs influencing athletes’ willingness to seek sport psychology services exists (e.g., Maniar et al., 2001; Martin, 2005; Martin et al., 2001); however research in relation to athletes’ attitudes and beliefs toward physiotherapists is very limited. Given the unique and close relationship which can ex...

Context: Despite the Psychosocial Strategies and Referral content area, athletic trainers (ATs) generally lack confidence in their ability to use this information. Objective: The current study's primary purpose was to determine (a) perceived psychological responses and coping behaviors athletes may present to ATs, (b) psychosocial strategies ATs...

Athletes routinely use psychological skills and interventions for performance enhancement but, perhaps surprisingly, not always to assist in recovery from injury. This book demonstrates the ways in which athletes and practitioners can transfer psychological skills to an injury and rehabilitation setting, to enhance recovery and the well-being of th...

Research investigating the use of several team building (TB) interventions collectively in one case study is sparse. The purpose of this study was to evaluate, via action research, the process of implementation of a season-long (12 months) multifaceted TB program with a junior league ice hockey team in Finland. The team consisted of 22 players, age...

Previous research has highlighted the use of psychosocial strategies as beneficial during sport injury rehabilitation to help athletes deal with injury related stressors (e.g., Beneka et al., 2007; Wiese-Bjornstal et al., 1998). However, relatively few studies have explored athletes’ actual use of these strategies within the rehabilitation context....

The purpose of the present study was to explore athletes’ attitudes toward physiotherapist in the East Midland region of England, United Kingdom. A total of 176 undergraduate university students (54% male; 29.5% female, with M/SD age 20.34/2.72) enrolled in sport related courses who regularly participated in sports completed the Attitudes toward Ph...

Context Injured athletes begin the rehabilitation process with expectations about the nature of the working relationship with an athletic trainer. These expectations can infuence the effectiveness of the assistance provided. Objective To determine whether male and female athletes differed in terms of expectations about injury rehabilitation servic...

Context: Injured athletes begin the rehabilitation process with expectations about the nature of the working relationship with an athletic trainer. These expectations can influence the effectiveness of the assistance provided. Objective: To determine whether male and female athletes differed in terms of expectations about injury rehabilitation serv...

Injured athletes typically enter injury rehabilitation with certain expectations of what the working relationships will be like. According to the literature, these expectations can play an integral role in the effectiveness of the assistance received (e.g., Greenberg et al., 2006) and may be different for males and females (Martin et al., 2001). Th...

Objectives: The objective was to explore possible benefits of Swimming with Babies (SWB) approach. The SWB approach is a respectful approach to baby swimming and includes natural submersion methods. More specifically, the study aimed to gain an insight into parents’ personal experiences of taking part in SWB swimming lessons. Design: Two distinct...

As a result of social support being a complex construct (Bianco & Eklund, 2001: Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 23, 85–107), Rees and Hardy (2000; The Sport Psychologist, 14, 327-347) sought and identified four social support dimensions relevant to sport. Of the four dimensions, esteem support has previously been highlighted as the most imp...

Research suggests that self-talk (ST) can be an effective cognitive strategy for improving performance (Hatzigeorgiadis et al., 2008: The Sport Psychologist, 22, 458-471). Much of the research to date has focused on examining the content of self-talk (Hardy et al., 2001: The Sport Psychologist, 15, 306-318), and to date very little research has inv...

ObjectivesDespite the gradual growth of psychology of injury literature, thus far few studies have investigated physiotherapists' personal experiences in using psychology in their work. Therefore the purpose of this study was to explore the physiotherapists' personal experiences in using psychological intervention techniques as part of sport injury...

Despite team building (TB) methods having their roots in organizational development (OD), this theoretical background has been seldom applied in sport. The purpose of this study was to provide chronological narrative review of the recent (1997-2008) sport-related research on team building. A total of 28 articles were reviewed. The findings suggest...

To gain an insight to the existing suggestions and recommendations on chartered physiotherapists' preferred methods of delivery for further training in sport psychology. 22 delegates (14 women, 8 men) from the 2006 Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Sports Medicine/International Federation of Sports Physiotherapy annual conference (respon...

According to Yukelson (1997), team building (TB) is an ongoing, multifaceted process in which team members learn to work together for a common goal. Based on existing definitions, an effective TB intervention should be direct and longitudinal in nature (Rovio, Arvinen-Barrow, Weigand, Eskola, & Lintunen, under review). It has been argued that TB sh...

The purpose of this study was to gain an insight into the use of imagery by Finnish synchronized skaters. A total of 269 skaters (senior=85, junior=98, novice=86) simultaneously completed the original and a translated version of the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ; Hall, Mack, Paivio, & Hausenblas, 1998) twice, first at the beginning of the pre-se...

The aim of the article is to introduce the concept and present the psychological principles of rehabilitation goal-setting. The article will mainly focus on presenting practical suggestions as to how goal setting could be used to enhance athletes' rehabilitation adherences.

In sport psychology, there is a need to deviate from traditional research methods and move towards a more diverse means of analysing data (Biddle, Markland, Gilbourne, Chatzisarantis, & Sparkes, 2001). Past research into chartered sport physiotherapists’ perceptions about psychological aspects of their work in the UK has included three quantitative...

A general consensus within published research subsist about chartered sports physiotherapists desiring further training in the psychological aspects of their work. More or less all published studies (e.g., Francis, Andersen, & Maley, 2000; Heaney, 2006; Hemmings & Povey, 2002; Larson, Starkey, & Zaichkowsky, 1996) have advocated further training in...

To assess, on a national level, the views of chartered physiotherapists with regard to the psychological content of physiotherapy practice. A postal survey to a national list of sport injury and physiotherapy clinics was employed. A total of 361 responses were included in the descriptive statistical and qualitative analyses. The Physiotherapist and...