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Athletes constantly push their bodies and minds to their limits, aiming for peak performance in every competition. However, the pressures they face—whether from training, competition, or personal expectations—can take a toll on their mental health. Sports psychiatry offers athletes a way to enhance their performance while addressing the psychological challenges unique to their demanding lifestyle. At Choulet Performance Psychiatry®, our psychologist utilizes a variety of sport and performance psychiatry techniques to help athletes manage these pressures and achieve their goals.

Executive Psychiatry is a specialized field that focuses on the unique mental health and performance needs of high-achieving professionals, particularly those in leadership roles. As an executive, you face a unique set of challenges and demands that can take a toll on your mental well-being, cognitive abilities, and overall effectiveness. Executive Psychiatry aims to address these specific concerns, empowering you to achieve and maintain optimal mental performance, resilience, and work-life balance.

Mental health is a complex and multifaceted aspect of our overall well-being, and accurately diagnosing and addressing mental health conditions is essential for individuals to lead fulfilling and productive lives. Psychological evaluations are a crucial tool in this process, as they provide a comprehensive assessment of an individual's cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning. By analyzing the results of these assessments, psychologists can gain a deeper understanding of an individual's unique strengths, challenges, and underlying factors contributing to their mental health concerns.

As an athlete, you understand the dedication, discipline, and passion required to excel in your sport. However, the intense physical and mental demands of training and competition can take a toll on your overall well-being if not properly managed. Maintaining a healthy balance between your sports commitments and your mental health is crucial for achieving optimal performance and long-term success.

We've all been there—lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, replaying that awkward conversation from three days ago for the hundredth time. Overthinking. It's like having an annoying roommate in your brain that just won't stop talking. Whether it's analyzing every little detail of a text message or worrying about a meeting next week, overthinking can take up way too much of our mental real estate. So, what's the deal with it? More importantly, how can we stop it? 

Concierge psychiatry and therapy is a personalized approach to mental healthcare that prioritizes the individual needs of each patient. Unlike traditional psychiatric and therapy practices, concierge services offer a more comprehensive and tailored experience, with a focus on building long-term relationships between patients and their providers.

Matt Forté is a celebrated NFL star and former Chicago Bears running back who is well known for his exceptional skills. Forté sat down with me to discuss his own experiences with mental health and his transition out of the NFL. He candidly opened up about the pressures he faced as an elite athlete in the NFL and the impact of injuries on his overall mental health and well-being.

In sports, the question isn’t if an athlete will get injured, but when. In many professional sporting environments, there’s a large emphasis on physical training and preparation, including strength and conditioning, physical therapy, massage, etc. Just as athletes train physically to stay healthy and strong, there is also a growing focus on mental training. Through developing strong coping skills, resilience, and a positive mindset, athletes can strengthen these protective psychological factors that can improve their response to injury.

With summertime swinging in full force, social media and screen time usage among children and adolescents have become prominent topics of discussions in most parenting circles.

There has been a rapid rise in media coverage surrounding athlete mental health, and I have seen firsthand the increasing need for professional mental health services within sports at all levels. Through my work as a Concierge Sports & Performance Psychiatrist with NBA, MLB, and NFL players, I have witnessed the transformative power that working with a sports psychiatrist can have on athlete well-being. Not only can that work positively impact athletes’ professional lives, but it also helps in their personal lives, as they learn to cope with stressors, as well as set healthy boundaries with those around them.

Kevin Love founded the Kevin Love Fund (KLF) in 2018 with a mission to empower athletes to improve their physical and mental well-being. In an exclusive interview with Kevin Love, Regina Miller, Executive Director of the KLF, and Ellie Foster, Co-Director of Education at KLF, they share an upcoming inaugural event: the Student-Athlete Mental Health Summit.

Professional basketball players face a unique set of stressors while working in a high-pressure environment like the NBA. As a result, there have been an increasing number of requests for mental health resources over the past several years. The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), the player union founded in 1954, developed a mental health program in 2018 in response to a surge of elite athletes grappling with mental health concerns. It is important to distinguish the NBPA from the NBA, which is the league governing body that oversees the business aspects of the sport.

ADHD is a diagnosis that affects BOTH men and women and is NOT exclusively a diagnosis made in childhood.

There have been an increasing number of athletes speaking out about their mental health struggles, and it’s no surprise that elite athletes competing at the Olympic level face a tremendous amount of pressure. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has been working tirelessly leading up to the Paris 2024 games to ensure that athletes have a surplus of mental health resources. Through the USOPC’s extensive mental health program and offerings, around 1,200 athletes received mental health services in 2023 from the USOPC, with the youngest athlete being age 12 and the oldest being age 54.

With Michael Phelps and Simone Biles speaking openly about their mental health challenges in recent years, sports leagues and players associations around the country are making resources available to their athletes. No one is setting a better example than the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA).