History of Sports Psychology

Abstract

Sport Psychology is a relatively young area, which studies what are the psychological peculiarities of the sport and the athlete. When we speak of Sport Psychology it may seem a recent issue marriage between psychology -of itself recently- and sport, provided that the application of psychology in sport is a matter of a few years ago and, by no means a issue that can be addressed from a historical perspective. In our historical review we will establish the following periods: (1) beginning, from 1879 to1919, (2) interwar period of 1920-1945, (3) before the First World Congress, from 1946 to1964 (4) consolidation, from 1965 to 1985 and (5) official recognition, 1986 until today. We conclude with an overview of the history of Sport Psychology in Spain.