SPORTS PSYCHIATRY: IMPROVING THE MENTAL HEALTH OF ATHLETES AT THE INDIVIDUAL AND SYSTEMS LEVELS
Improve skills in providing psychiatric health care to athlete populations. Sports psychiatry as a sub-specialty within psychiatry focuses on diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric illness in athletes. While utilization of psychological approaches to enhance performance can be part of the work of the sports psychiatrist, the emphasis is more on addressing actual mental illness in this population. Sports psychiatry may also involve the use of exercise as a therapeutic or preventative intervention for mental illness. Sports psychiatry typically focuses on mental health care for individual athletes, but systems-wide initiatives (e.g., at the level of the team or university) are also often important.
Prerequisites & course information
Requisites: Graduate/professional standing Course Designation: Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement Repeatable for Credit: No Last Taught: Fall 2026 Learning Outcomes: 1. Demonstrate understanding of the epidemiology of, risk factors for, and unique manifestations of a variety of psychiatric disorders and psychosocial stressors in athletes. Audience: Graduate 2. Compare mechanisms of how treatments for psychiatric disorders in athletes may be similar to and different from treatments for psychiatric disorders in the general population. Audience: Graduate 3. Distinguish between individual level treatments as well as system wide interventions to address mental illness in athletes. Audience: Graduate 4. Demonstrate skill accessing the medical literature on a variety of topics related to sports psychiatry. Audience: Graduate Learning Outcomes: 1. Demonstrate understanding of the epidemiology of, risk factors for, and unique manifestations of a variety of psychiatric disorders and psychosocial stressors in athletes. Audience: Graduate 2. Compare mechanisms of how treatments for psychiatric disorders in athletes may be similar to and different from treatments for psychiatric disorders in the general population. Audience: Graduate 3. Distinguish between individual level treatments as well as system wide interventions to address mental illness in athletes. Audience: Graduate 4. Demonstrate skill accessing the medical literature on a variety of topics related to sports psychiatry. Audience: Graduate
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027