Kognitivno-bihevioralna terapija u sportu: samopouzdanje u nogometu i prikaz slučaja
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Sport: Self-Confidence in Football – Case Study

Summary/Abstract: Self-confidence is one of the most important factors distinguishing highly successful from less successful athletes. Self-confidence can be defined as belief that we can successfully perform a desired behavior and reach our goals. In the field of self-beliefs there are more different but interrelated terms: self-awareness, self-efficacy, self-confidence, self-esteem. The aim of this work is to present the effect of low self-confidence on sport performance and specifically describe the main sources for low self-confidence in sport. Second goal is to present cognitivebehavioral therapy (CBT) of 24-year-old professional football player, which came to a sport psychologist due to low self-confidence and poorer performance. He is a midfielder, but was not playing in the first team in the beginning of the therapy. In the games and even trainings athlete noticed a lot of negative automatic thoughts, fear of failure, anxiety and body arousal. His performance is passive; he is avoiding almost every situation where the possibility of failure exists. Cognitive techniques were the main part of the therapy and included education about a problem, cognitive restructuration and goal-setting, while behavioral techniques where focused on exposure, behavioral experiments and relaxation techniques. After 15 sessions, CBT techniques have led to significant and visible changes in athlete’s way of thinking and performance. He managed to get back in the first team, became one of the most important players of the team and after two years he realized his dreams with transfer abroad. The significance of this paper is to show the importance of psychological preparation in sport and efficiency of CBT in sport psychology.

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