#190 Prof Rosemary Purcell & Dr Courtney Walton - Promoting Mental Wellbeing in Sport

I speak with Prof Rosemary Purcell & Dr Courtney Walton in this week's episode.

Rosie is Director of Knowledge Translation at Orygen. She is also the Deputy Head of Department of the Centre for Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne and a registered psychologist.

Rosie has co-authored over 150 publications in the areas of youth mental health, early intervention in forensic mental health and mental health in elite sport. She is an investigator on a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Project Grant investigating the benefits of physical activity for young people with depression, and a member of the International Olympic Committee's Elite Athlete Mental Health Consensus Group and the IOC's Mental Health Translation Working Group.

Rosie's primary research interests are understanding mental health problems in elite athletes and developing optimal strategies for improving and maximising mental health and wellbeing in sporting environments

Courtney is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow within the Mental Health in Elite Sports research group at The University of Melbourne and Orygen. He is also a psychologist at The Mind Room, where he works primarily with athletes and performers.

Courtney's research aims are to understand the aspects of unstable and competitive environments that both positively and negatively interact with mental health. He is also interested in exploring the ways in which sport and exercise can be supportive of adolescent mental health and well-being. He is an Associate Editor at Australian psychologist, and has contributed to research and consultancy projects with leading sporting organisations such as the AFL, AIS, Cricket Australia, and Tennis Australia. So far, he has published over 50 peer reviewed articles and book chapters.

Courtney and Rosie have co-authored a fantastic paper entitled "An Evidence-Informed Framework to Promote Mental Wellbeing in Elite Sport" and it's this paper we discuss in detail.

You can read the paper here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.780359/full