Sports and fitness are an integral part of the life of a modern person. Sports activities build character, instill teamwork skills, and are generally good for health. Regular physical activity strengthening cardiovascular system, reduce the risk of osteoporosis and depression and even prolong life.

Masha Gavrosh

amateur runner

Every time I miss a workout, I am tormented by a feeling of guilt and inferiority. I'm starting to think I'm weak-willed. These pangs of conscience are so strong that it’s easier for me to go to training than to torment myself like this. It seems that without exercise I am worthless. Sport is what allows me to be different from others. And when I forget about training, it seems to me that I lose this feature and cease to be a superman.

People who are passionate about fitness or sports constantly follow their rivals on social networks, compare their successes with their own, and this is not beneficial. There is always someone who has run a marathon or covered a distance faster. This causes envy or feelings of inferiority.

Victoria Kaylin

psychologist

If in real life Not everything is going smoothly for a person; likes become a source of pleasure. Social isolation, lack of friends, poor relationships with family lead to addiction virtual world, which literally sucks you in, because it provides all the necessary conditions in the form of approval, praise and a temporary increase in self-esteem.

3. Harm to social and personal life

Lenny Sadykov

strives to become a Ph.D. in athletics

I was the head of the youth affairs department of my town, then I was demoted to a school director, and in October I was transferred to a simple teacher: more and more time was required for sports, the authorities made comments. I decided that I needed to be able to leave on time. But my running results are growing! I’m getting an education as a physical education teacher and building a house in the suburbs to make a farm there like the Kipchoges or the Ingebrigtsens. This is a diagnosis...

A sports addict can easily cancel a work meeting, forego a get-together with friends, or sacrifice a family dinner just because he needs to exercise. Sometimes this leads to layoffs, changes in social circles, and problems in family life.

SPORTS ADDICTIONS (EXERCISE DEPENDENCE)

IN modern science When it comes to sports, it is customary to distinguish between sports for health (what was previously called physical education) and sports highest achievements(professional). In addition, today there are so-called extreme sports, which are gaining more and more popularity these days, especially among the young and the so-called rich. It is the sport of the highest achievements and extreme sport carry the greatest addictive potential.

In recent decades, publications devoted to sports have appeared in Western literature. addiction or addiction exercise. Exercise addiction, as is known and noted by many, was first mentioned by P. Baekeland ( Baekeland, 1970) when he examined the effect of exercise deprivation on sleep patterns. Subsequently, the concept of exercise addiction was popularized and developed by M. Sachs and D. Pargman (Sachs, Pargman, 1984), who coined the term “running addiction” ( running addiction). The authors described a peculiar withdrawal syndrome that develops during running deprivation: anxiety, tension, irritability, muscle twitching, etc. A number of scientists, explaining the occurrence of exercise addiction, put forward the following psychophysiological explanations, combined into the thermogenic, catecholamine and endorphin hypotheses.

The thermogenic hypothesis suggests that exercise increases body temperature, reducing muscle tone and somatic anxiety.

The catecholamine and endorphin hypotheses are in line with modern views on the neurophysiological and neuropharmacological nature of the emergence of all chemical dependencies.

Speaking about the characteristics of exercise addiction, sometimes there are two of its forms: primary and secondary - arising on the basis of food addiction (eatingdisorder). During primary exercise addiction, the physical activity is the object of dependence. On the contrary, with secondary exercise addiction, the overwhelming motivation for physical activity is associated with the need to lose weight or change one's own figure. American scientists were able to identify two criteria, which they defined as impaired functioning and withdrawal symptoms, which manifest themselves either in the form of a hostile reaction to stopping training or an inability to control the volume of exercise. The criterion for impairment of functioning can be manifested in four areas: (a) mental, (b) social or occupational, (c) physical, and (d) behavioral.

A characteristic feature of the lives of people suffering from exercise addiction is a distortion of the normal routine and way of life. All their activities revolve around constant training, they lack the strength and energy to communicate with loved ones and other matters (social sphere), they continue to train despite injuries and doctor’s prohibitions (physical sphere). In addition, their training is highly stereotyped and must be repeated in a strictly planned order and volume (behavioral sphere). Impaired functioning in the mental sphere is manifested in the inability to concentrate on any activity due to constant thoughts about training.

In addition to running, in modern literature there are descriptions of clinical cases of the emergence of sports addiction during exercise. different types sports, especially: martial arts, heavy and athletics, bodybuilding, etc. Addiction has also been identified in people involved in sports for health. For women, there is a direct relationship between the number of hours per week devoted to sports and the risk of developing addiction. However, running (50%), general physical activity (27.7%) and weightlifting (7.8%) were most often studied for the occurrence of sports addiction. Other sports were largely ignored.

Of the psychological characteristics of sports addicts, emotional coldness, callousness, and a tendency toward perfectionism attract attention. Indicators such as increased neuroticism, psychoticism, hypomania and impulsivity, as well as low levels of extraversion, are noted.

Let us summarize the behavioral and personal characteristics of a sports addict.

Researchers have long noted that intense sports often constituted a sports addiction, which later turned into a substitution addiction. (laddiction de replacement) in the form of surfactant consumption. This is preceded by the inevitable loss of status at the end of a career, which the athlete is unable to accept, decreased self-esteem, and depression. Moreover, the higher the level of the athlete, the more vulnerable he is and the more likely he is to become a chemical addict. Termination sports career- this is a synonym for total loss of oneself, followed by a painful separation and a possible fall into a social vacuum and addiction. Meanwhile, a number of experts question the existence of exercise addiction as a primary and independent type of addiction. They indicate the frequent coexistence of cravings for excessive exercise and various food addictions. Based on this, it is suggested that exercise addiction may in many ways only be an expression of an underlying food addiction.

American and French psychiatrists and psychologists studied female athletes. They noted that those female athletes who were believed to show signs of primary exercise addiction were, for the most part, not significantly different from female athletes in terms of mental abnormalities and personality profiles. On the contrary, subjects with food deviations, regardless of whether they had an exercise addiction, showed relatively high level mental disorders, neuroticism, addiction and impulsivity, low self-esteem, greater preoccupation with body image and weight, and distorted beliefs about the consequences of not exercising. In the absence of food deviations, women considered dependent on training showed virtually no signs of pathology. However, some researchers believe that ordinary and even especially intensive training should not be considered in terms of binge drinking and addiction, even if they fit the clinical criteria for other addictions. It is obvious that compulsive sports activity acts as a regulator

moods. At the same time, one cannot help but emphasize the role of sports, including extreme sports, in the prevention and rehabilitation of chemical dependence. The above-mentioned martial arts, which have a complex range of qualities necessary, for example, for a child to self-realize, self-affirm, and acquire their own views, are also offered as a sport as an alternative to addictive behavior. Other researchers offer sets of exercises developed on the basis of hatha yoga, including both physical and breathing exercises. Czech researcher K. Nespor emphasizes that exercise and yoga can be useful components of addiction prevention and treatment programs. The advantage of yoga is seen in the integration of physical exercise and relaxation techniques. At the same time, it is known that professional sports often increases the risk of addictive behavior. As for practicing currently popular extreme sports, it should certainly be recognized that this is a possible way to create a socially acceptable form of addiction when carrying out preventive and rehabilitation work, and especially in children and adolescents with addictive behavior. In addition to purely neurochemical mechanisms (activation of the endogenous opioid system, release of catecholamines affecting the reward system), with psychological point vision, “extreme” activities in young people lead to the formation of a sense of their own elitism, associated both with the technical difficulty of developing a motor skill and with a real or illusory risk to the health and life of the athlete.

At the same time, it should be remembered that sports addiction, like any other addiction, can easily change its form and transform into another, including a chemical one. This is what is associated with the high percentage of alcoholism and drug addiction among former athletes. Therefore, extreme sports can be recognized as an alternative to chemical dependence, but an alternative fraught with a certain danger.

In general, of course, sports addiction (exercise addiction) is a socially rewarded addiction and is defined as a multidimensional, maladaptive pattern of behavior in an athlete, leading to a clinically significant deterioration or illness, manifested in the form of three or more of the following symptoms:

• intention tolerance - the need for an ever-increasing amount of training to achieve the desired effect or a weakening effect from the previous volume of training;
• withdrawal symptoms (anxiety, fatigue), which require the usual (or even greater) amount of physical activity to eliminate;
• intention effects - increased physical activity relative to the planned one;
• loss of control - a persistent desire or unsuccessful attempts to reduce the volume of training or take control of it;
• time - increasing the amount of time for activities necessary to obtain physical activity;
• conflict - reduction of important activities aimed at communication, work or recreation because they interfere with the planned volume of training;
• Duration - continuation of training, despite awareness of the physical or psychological problems that were caused or aggravated by them.

It is not uncommon to observe how people, in attempts to reset overweight and purchase beautiful shapes begin to cross the boundaries of reason, confining their entire existence to diets and regular classes sports. How to recognize the problem and solve it?

So, let’s define specific signs: for people obsessed with sports, the fear of missing a workout is so great that in order to maintain their usual routine, they are ready to come up with any reason to refuse other activities or entertainment, even to the point of not showing up for a celebration own day birth. A classic sign of addiction is withdrawal syndrome when it is impossible to exercise for more than 36 hours. Anxiety, tension, discomfort, guilt, insomnia, apathy, sluggishness, headaches and even loss of appetite appear.

And yet: why does exercise addiction occur?

Like any other addiction, sports addiction is also based on physiological and psychological reasons. From a psychological point of view, this is, as a rule, satisfaction of one’s own ego, and is especially pronounced in people suffering from feelings of inferiority, in those who experienced psychological trauma in childhood. Improving their physical capabilities and new physical achievements help them achieve a sense of superiority. The physiological side of addiction is due to the fact that during physical activity the body produces a whole complex of hormones, for example, endorphin - the hormone of happiness, which is why after training the mood is usually elevated and a person experiences mental arousal. But training is also accompanied by the release of adrenaline, serotonin and testosterone, the concentration of which in the body increases several times during physical activity. It is these hormones that cause a whole storm of emotions, and in order to experience this elated mood, a person is ready to do anything, because some of these hormones, for example, the endomorphine group, have a pronounced narcotic effect and are addictive. Let us note that people with a certain mentality who are prone to any other types of addiction are “addicted” to sports: drug, sexual, alcohol, chemical, etc. If a person obsessed with sports for some reason stops going to the gym, he has addictions to gambling, drugs or cigarettes are often included, and in some cases diseases such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia and depression may develop. Sports addiction, like any other, can destroy a person in the literal sense of the word.

Exercise addiction is more common among young and middle-aged people - among athletes and people leading an active lifestyle. As shown by studies to identify exercise addiction among American college students where it is customary to play sports, it was found in 21.8% of students who trained 360 minutes or more per week. At the same time, only 3% of sports addicts were identified among people involved in sports unprofessionally.

So, according to researchers, increased sports loads stimulate the production of so-called pleasure hormones - endorphins and dopamine, i.e. biochemical changes occur in the brain similar to those seen with opiate drugs such as morphine or heroin. Typically, men start playing sports to become strong and agile, to be able to stand up for themselves, and women - in the hope of losing weight or maintaining good figure. But even when the goal is achieved and the result is secured, physical education enthusiasts continue to pump, train, and run. On the one hand, this is not surprising: if you stop exercising, you will lose your shape and get fat. But, on the other hand, there is an even more compelling reason to continue training. And we are not always aware of it. Some athletes, both professional and amateur, admit that when playing sports they experience physical pleasure akin to ecstasy. If a person experiencing this stops exercising, they may feel unwell. He develops a feeling of physical discomfort, depression, and finally - sometimes he even gets sick. Many attribute this to the fact that they simply do not have the opportunity to keep themselves in shape as they are used to. In fact, avid athletes lack their usual “dose”! Those for whom exercise is part of a weight loss program are especially predisposed to such addiction. They usually combine exercise with diet. Experts call this condition “athletic anorexia.” At the same time, sports activities, which were initially used as a means of losing weight, become an uncontrollable need. A person very quickly brings himself to the stage of exhaustion, but can no longer stop. Many of us early childhood explained a simple truth: in order not to experience health problems, it is necessary not only to healthy image life (i.e. give up bad habits), but also exercise regularly, or at least start every day with morning exercises. Nowadays, most people are not chasing health, but rather the beauty of their body, so it is not surprising that, in addition to a specific sport, fitness (in all its varieties), like aerobics once upon a time, is attracting more and more more people all over the planet, becoming a real fashion trend. As a rule, starting small - i.e. From regular jogging or basic exercises, many sports fans reasonably increase the load. And now yesterday’s runner is moving multi-kilogram disks in gym trying to build muscle mass or lose muscle mass extra pounds and trying to achieve the desired result as quickly as possible. However, such fanaticism regarding sports can result in serious physical and psychological dependence on daily workouts. In other words, after a while, lovers of the same fitness become sports addicts, of whom, for example, in Italy there are about 500 thousand people, and this figure is steadily growing.

So what explains and how is the notorious addiction to sports expressed? It’s all very simple: according to research, if, for example, a fitness enthusiast suddenly stops going to the gym, the parts of his brain responsible for addiction to alcohol, cigarettes, gambling and computer games, but also the desire to use steroids and anabolic steroids, which, naturally, in no way adds to their health. Exercise And active activities sports are indeed a source of self-confidence and emotional stability, but, unfortunately, like any other addiction, addiction to sports correlates with a number of mental pathologies, both severe and not so severe.

Where is the critical point beyond which fitness and sports not only do not contribute to the development and training of the body, but have a negative impact on it? For each person, this point comes at a different time. For example, most people can only dream of the endurance of Olympic triathlon athletes. Needless to say, not everyone is able to first swim 1.5 km, then ride a bike 40 km and run another 10 km. And without a rest break!

For some, the limit of the body’s physical capabilities is just an additional “pancake” on the barbell or a trip to the fitness center “beyond the program.”

Many people are so eager to get fit that it is sometimes difficult for them to slow down and take a break from their training program. However, if after playing sports, instead of a surge of energy, a person constantly feels tired and physically overworked, then this is a reason to be wary. Perhaps he overtrained, becoming a victim of physical overload.

To prevent overtraining from becoming pathological, it must be recognized in time. Here are the main signs:

• decreased activity, fatigue;
• coordination disorder;
• it takes more time to recuperate;
• rapid heartbeat in the morning;
• increased blood pressure at rest;
• headache;
• loss of appetite;
• muscle pain;
• gastrointestinal disorders;
• weakening immune system;
• an increase in the number of injuries to the musculoskeletal system;
• sleep disorders, insomnia.

Some of the signs are physiological in nature, but not only. Typically, physical activity and sports relieve stress and improve our well-being. However, overly intense activities and training have the opposite effect and can cause irritability, aggression, apathy and low self-esteem.

Another important point. It happens that overwork is caused not by physiological, but rather by psychological reasons. When a person spends hours exhausting himself in the gym, training with increased physical activity, then one can hardly talk about his desire to “improve his shape.” Rather, it's a real addiction. Training to the point of exhaustion, with the risk of injury, as well as a shift in values ​​from the scale of “health, well-being” towards “sports” - all these are signs of real addiction. It is no coincidence that addiction to sports and fitness is recognized as the same real problem as well as eating disorders. Only recognize sports addiction much more difficult. Regular overload can lead to serious problems with mental and physical health. By locking themselves in the gym, people often risk their health.

Things to remember: P. Baekeland, running addiction, thermogenic, catecholamine, endorphin hypotheses, replacement addiction (laddiction de remplacement), compulsive sports activity, prevention, endorphin, athletic anorexia.

QUESTIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR CHAPTER 11

• 1. What is sport for health and elite sport?
• 2. When did works devoted to sports addiction first appear?
• 3. What is running addiction and what are its symptoms?
• 4. What are the thermogenic, catecholamine, and endorphin hypotheses?
• 5. What are the characteristics of those suffering from exercise addiction?
• 6. Tell us about the psychological characteristics of sports addicts.
• 7. What are the behavioral and personality characteristics of sports addicts?
• 8. What is substitution addiction?
• 9. What does compulsive sports activity sometimes serve as?
• 10. Can extreme sports help in treating substance abuse?
• 11. Why does exercise addiction occur?
• 12. Explain the main signs of overtraining and their relationship to sports addiction.

• Prevention (from late Lat. preventio- I’m ahead of you, I’m warning you; English, prevention)- prevention, prevention, prevention. For example, in law preventive measures are called preventive and other measures aimed at preventing crimes and other offenses.

Doctors at the American Fitness Association are sounding the alarm. Such a seemingly healthy addiction to training may turn out to be a sign of severe psychological addiction. “Fitnessaholics” tend to give up work and family responsibilities for the sake of training; they are capable of almost anything, just so as not to miss their favorite activity. And most importantly, a painful addiction to fitness manifests itself in the fact that a person tries to immediately spend what he ate during training, so as not to gain weight.

Test

Formally, a person who spends more than 5 hours a week in the gym can be considered a fitnessaholic. However, the American Fitness Association has developed a special test to more accurately determine addiction, the questions of which we invite you to answer.

1. Do you feel guilty for skipping a workout?
2. Do you try to move more if you miss a workout?
3. Does your mood depend on whether you worked out today or not?
4. Do you feel tired and don’t want to go to training, but force yourself?
5. Do you spend more than 5 hours a week at the gym?
6. Do you avoid work and family responsibilities in order to go to training?
7. Do you work out with full dedication, despite being unwell?
8. Are you trying to burn through all the calories you get from food during your workout?
9. Do you purchase a gym membership first and only then calculate your monthly expenses?
10. Does your gym membership cost much more than you can actually afford?

If you answered “yes” to more than four questions on the list, you should think about your attitude towards training - it risks developing into an addiction.

How to deal with it

Many people would argue that they would only dream of becoming a fitness addict. Indeed, the inability to live without a gym and training at first glance is not the worst thing you can think of. You will perform training plan and lose weight, so why get rid of such a convenient addiction, it’s not a painful craving for chocolate, for example. It's actually not that simple.

Most fitnessaholics are not thin. Their problem is constant overtraining. Too many activities, too much stress on the muscles. As a result, the body is in a constant state of stress and increases appetite. Naturally, maintaining a diet in such conditions becomes very difficult. challenging task. Here are the majority of people who are addicted to fitness and do not adhere to sustainable nutrition plans. So, contrary to popular belief, losing weight is easier for those who are not “dependent” on exercise.

Psychologists advise limiting your workouts to 5 hours a week and stop worrying about what you have left. free time, which can be spent not on fitness. Remember that you have other hobbies that are not related to physical activity and be sure to include them in your schedule. Well, the most important thing on the path to getting rid of fitness addiction is the awareness of the fact that not a single sport will relieve you of the need to eat rationally and in a balanced manner.

Only moderate training, recovery and rational nutrition will help you “sculpt” a beautiful body.

Gettyimages/Fotobank.ru

For about three months I rushed around like mad: after work, I went to the gym and stayed there until the night. Get up at seven in the morning to get to the pool. I completely gave up flour in favor of vegetables and fruits (see). The regimen was wearing out, but the kilograms were slipping away, so the instructors’ advice to slow down fell on deaf ears.

It all ended right there New Year, when, while dancing a rumba, I suddenly collapsed on the floor: the anterior cruciate ligament was torn, the meniscus was cracked. I couldn't walk for two months. The doctors were perplexed: how could I get a professional degree in dance? sports injury(about other fitness dangers - in the material)?

It turned out to be very simple. The meniscus was worn away from the stress, and the rumba simply became the last straw. Having learned about my troubles, the fitness instructor sighed sadly: “I’m addicted to drugs...”

What is fitness addiction?

“Addiction is when a person subordinates his life to something or someone,” explains psychologist Ilya Kotlov. “Mania comes first, crowding out all other needs.”

Fitness addiction is easy to recognize: a person hangs out in the gym more often than with friends and family, workouts become more intense and longer. But the “sick” stubbornly does not notice the problem, continuing to explain his behavior to himself and his loved ones by the desire for health.

"At physical activity are produced in the brain, says Ilya Kotlov, so fitness acts like a drug, or gambling. A person goes to the gym for more and more endorphins. In addition, people often use fitness to try to heal personal problems - loneliness, family instability or divorce.”

How to recognize fitness mania?

As with any other addiction, the rule for fitness mania is: in the early stages it is difficult to recognize, in the later stages it is difficult to treat. And like any other addiction, fitness mania has several signs.

The first is systematicity. Narcologists say that addiction is when a system appears: every day, or once a week, or even less often, a person drinks (or takes a drug). The problem with fitness is that it inevitably involves being systematic. Therefore, to a certain extent, anyone who conscientiously goes to the gym three times a week for several years is a fitness addict. But it's not scary.

It’s much worse when the second sign appears—antisociality. If fitness becomes an obstacle to a full-fledged personal, family or social life, this is already a clear alarm bell. Let’s say if you prefer training to sitting in a pub after work, this is a sign of a healthy sports spirit. If you chose training over a family holiday, there is reason to think about it. And it’s really bad when you start hiding from your family and friends that you prefer fitness to any other recreation.

At this stage, the clinical picture of drug addiction unfolds in all its glory. As the laboratory specialists told me physical culture and practical psychology of the Federal State Institution VNIIFK, fitness maniacs experience withdrawal syndrome, that is, withdrawal, after a missed workout: their head hurts, their body aches. Fitness maniacs suffer from chronic overload, lack of... These are often nervous and reserved people.

How to cure a fitness addict?

Here, as with any other addiction, the main thing is awareness. The sooner it happens, the better.

The second step is to get off the fitness needle and learn to control your passion for exercise. Unfortunately, my story is very typical: a maniac’s passion for sports can only be cooled by a serious injury. But there are other examples.

“My patient realized that she had a fitness mania when she began to dream about training,” says Tatyana Titova, a sports doctor at the Planet Fitness club chain. “I went to a psychologist because I got so involved that I couldn’t stop.”

I would also rather go to a psychologist than injure my leg. Now for me, not only exercise equipment and dancing are over, but even...

Another option is when loved ones save you. One of my friends was literally cheated on by her boyfriend with the gym. Naturally, he canceled dates, was late and generally acted as if he had another girlfriend. The apotheosis was the moment when he declared that he should limit himself in sex, because from this “a man spends a lot of protein.” Honestly, that's what I said. After a long and difficult conversation, it turned out that he has no other, he really spends all his time in the gym. The friend acted like a real psychotherapist: she didn’t make a scene and put the guy before a choice, but gradually, day after day, she let him know that she didn’t particularly like jocks and she loved him not for his relief, but for his various spiritual qualities. And it worked.

In general, fitness mania is not a disease, but a symptom of a deeper problem. It is advisable to understand this before you erase your meniscus or break something.

PHOTO Getty Images

There are more and more fitness maniacs. Among them are not only politicians, actresses and models, but also “mere mortals” who devote themselves to improving own body too much time - so much so that it becomes an obsession. Everyone knows that physical activity, be it a long walk, half an hour of running or a fitness class, brings significant benefits to the body: from losing weight and improving your figure to maintaining the cardiovascular system, preventing osteoporosis and other pathologies caused by overweight, and general good health. Not to mention the beneficial effect on our mood: thanks to the release of endorphins into the blood during exercise, sport is one of the natural antidepressants.

However, in some situations, visiting the gym is not limited to the desire to improve well-being and turns into an obsessive desire to achieve physical perfection. As a rule, women try to lose more weight and model their bodies in the image and likeness of stereotypical and unattainable ideals. Men are chasing growth muscle mass and muscle definition. Ineradicable dissatisfaction with one’s own body and the willingness to make any sacrifice to improve it is called bigorexia or the Adonis complex.

How to recognize sports addiction?

Increasing dependence on sports can manifest itself in compulsive behavior or the need to perform strictly specific actions in order to feel well. For sports addicts, going to the gym becomes an integral moral duty, the violation of which causes a feeling of guilt and a feeling of failure.

Why is this happening?

This behavior is based on rejection of one’s body, that is, an altered perception of it, which can lead to body dysmorphia: the inability to objectively assess the state of one’s own body. Therefore, in the pursuit of physical perfection, there is a need beyond all measure to increase the number of hours devoted to body modeling and muscle building. Suffering from bigorexia means reacting painfully to everything related to aesthetic perfection, including worrying about the lack of noticeable results from training and working non-stop to change your proportions. As a rule, people addicted to sports have low self-esteem, and fitness achievements become almost the only reward for their efforts. In this sense, bigorexia may be a manifestation of a defense mechanism: low self-esteem is compensated by the appearance of a body that is worthy of admiration from others. And if anorexia is usually everyone possible ways hides and hides, then bigorexia, on the contrary, is exposed in every possible way.

What to do?

If it seems to you that you have a similar problem, if you notice that going to the gym has become your daily duty and every absence makes you feel dissatisfied and guilty, try asking yourself: what role does fitness play in your life and what is hidden behind it? dissatisfaction? It is possible that it is better to understand its true causes and solve problems with the help of a psychologist rather than a coach.

For more information, see the website of the publication Psicologi-italia.