The Challenge of Building Relationships Between Athletes and Coaches

This week I’m delighted to speak to Cailie McGuire and Dr Daniel Brown about thriving in sport.

Cailie is in her final year of her PhD at Queen’s University. Her research interest is in sport psychology, specifically team dynamics: looking at how teammates interact with one another and how that influences individual and collective outcomes. Cailie’s PhD specifically focuses on the importance of building trust between teammates, coaches and support staff to promote athlete thriving.

Dan is a senior lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Portsmouth and leads the undergraduate programme in Sport and Exercise Psychology there. He is a Chartered Psychologist of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Dan’s research centres on the psychology of human excellence and well-being (thriving).

Cailie and Dan have written a paper along with Dr Desmond McEwan, Dr Rachel Arnold and Dr Luc Martin and led by Cailie entitled “Thriving together: conceptual and methodological considerations for examining thriving in interdependent sport”. Cailie and Dan take us through the paper and what it means in practice for coaches.