Figure skater Alexandra Trusova with tears in her eyes and extreme dissatisfaction told her coach Sergey Dudakov: "Never! I will never go out on the ice again! I hate it! I hate this sport!" And indeed, she was the best that day. Set a record with the number of fours! I was going to win the Olympics-2022, but I became the second! And it traumatized the athlete!
By me, in my psychological research, this phenomenon is called the complex of the Second. Sometimes I call it the Titov complex, because the great Herman Titov, who was recommended by Sergei Korolev, could have become the first cosmonaut, but thanks to Nikita Khrushchev's choice, this did not happen. We will never know about the true experiences and sufferings of Herman Titov.
Many athletes feel the complex of the second as a psychotrauma and carry it, sometimes, through their whole lives. According to the stories of some of their clients, they wake up at night and do not sleep. It takes a lot of time to get rid of it. It depends on the characteristics of the psyche.
And now, having appreciated, thanks to the video, the suffering and tears of Alexandra Trusova, I understand that this is a psychotrauma, but it is connected not only with what happened at the 2022 Olympics. This is due to the psychological stress caused by the format of sports life, powerful competition, the lack of harmonious development of the personality and psyche of athletes living in the format of loads and exhaustion of the body and psyche. But a special place is occupied by the contradictory mental state of these athletes with coaches, to whom they are drawn on the one hand, and on the other, repelled, realizing the consumer attitude on their part. The problem of motives in sports of these still underdeveloped in the personal plan of teenage athletes and young athletes is a sore subject! They all want to be champions! And this mobilizes them to be active! Of course, this is an immature motivation. There must be something else in the motives. There should be harmony of different motives and values. But is it possible for a promising athlete who does not dream of being a champion?
Now about the factors that are also the cause of psychotrauma.
Television is a magical means by which a person goes into circulation and acquires a special feeling fr om society. This is a strong load on a young man and therefore there is a so-called megalomania, teenage manic, or, in another way, teenage or youthful star disease. It is determined by the fact that a young man and a teenager are no longer able to live something other than sports. This is a kind of adolescent or adolescent mental deformity.
Severe star diseases are a specific form of mental adolescent and adolescent deformity, induced with the help of sports fame and television. As a result, the young man is bathed in sports glory, and when suddenly all this is taken away fr om him, there is a withdrawal syndrome, this is depression, emptiness. But how to live when there is some kind of loss, some kind of assessment, the reverse side of the coin, that's where a mental mental crisis arises.
In figure skating, in particular, due to the weighting of female athletes, undercooling and changes in biodynamics begin.
One coach, when solving psychological problems, is not enough. We need educational psychologists.
Even adults are punished by star disease, especially if they are fired. Many people get drunk, and young men and teenagers, even more so. Television is a serious burden, especially after a person disappears from the sphere of attention of the media, society and television.
In figure skating at the level of big sports, there is a consumer attitude for the sake of obtaining championship titles. And the young men are blinded by these goals. They are forgotten, lose the locus of personal and life control, becoming just a means, and then a spent commodity. And then wh ere to go? How to live then?
Young men and teenagers in sports should not be a spent commodity with crippled health. We know about these tragedies among gymnasts. In any case, psychological work should be carried out in this regard. And then wh ere do they go? It's a broken fate. What's next? Well, if the young man mobilized after a loss, failure, fiasco and began to fight. But there are also those who will suffer with this psychotrauma all their lives.
The TV program "Morning Star", which was very popular in the past, was closed, among other things, due to the consequences - mental injuries and psychotrauma of children, young men and adolescents and the corresponding dissatisfaction with such consequences of parents.
We may someday find out about the true experiences and reflections of Kamila Valieva's parents.
Kamila Valieva has a psychotrauma caused by the most terrible and cruel monster - society and all its destructive structures and laws.
There is also a more terrible version of psychotrauma. Then this psychotrauma is even more insidious and requires investigation. If this is the fall of Kamila Valieva as a move in chess - as a sacrifice of a figure for the sake of a gold medal of other doping-free colleagues of the Russian national team. Apparently, analytics and investigations of this version have a right to be!
If such a thing was done here? What is it?
The head of the Russian IOC noted the coldness on the part of coaches and colleagues towards Kamila Valieva after this defeat. What is this cold about?
In any case, different times have come to Russian figure skating!
It is clear that millions of people go on a campaign for success, but only a few acquire it. It is necessary to take into account risk groups, excesses. There should be appropriate structures and conditions so that there are no consequences.
There are young men and teenagers with weak mentality, and for them sports fame is a special test. Coaches and sports psychologists should take this into account when selecting children, because there are weak psychotypes of children. It is not recommended at all that young athletes with weak mentality participate in such a way, because in case of loss it can affect the future. Even suicides are possible!
In sports psychology, the most relevant area is methods aimed at accepting loss and failure. There are always those who get depressed, and there are those who start fighting and turn into fighters. Sports coaches and psychologists are doing this. But not everyone has enough skills and talent in this regard.
(See the video channel "Psychologist Ramil Garifullin"
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Associate Professor of the Department of Pedagogical Psychology of the Institute of Psychology and Education of Kazan Federal University, Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan
Ramil Garifullin
