Citation

Kaul N. J. Indian Acad. Appl. Psychol. 2017; 43(2).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Habib Ahmad on behalf of the Academy of Applied Psychology)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Retirement from the elite sport has gathered a significant amount of research attention over the last decade (Taylor & Ogilvie, 1998; Kadlcik & Flemr, 2008). Professional athletes who have been the most visible, have little formal education, earned high incomes but few job skills to transfer to non-sport occupations, often have the most traumatic retirement process (Mwisukha & Rintaugu, 2011). Coakley (1983) refers to retirement as "the process of transition from participation in competitive sport to another activity or set of activities" (p.10). Retirement can either be normative, i.e., predictable and under the control of a person, or non-normative, i.e., occurs suddenly and therefore coping with it is more demanding (Petermann, 1995). An involuntary retirement caused due to an injury is categorized as a non-normative event because it is an unexpected event (Wylleman, Alfermann & Lavallee, 2004). Leaving sport has also been conceptualized as a form of "social death" as it may lead to unemployment, psychological crisis, depression, confusion and loss of identity (Houlston, 1982; Weiss, 2001) but, in many cases it involves new opportunities and the potential for growth and development (Coakley, 1983). Athletes retire from sport due to various reasons such as injuries, family pressures, age, and decline in encouragement by significant others and a shift in the relative importance placed on sports compared with other age-appropriate activities (Blinde & Stratta, 1992; Coakley, 2001; Morakinyo, 2002). However, retirement due to injuries is considered to have a significantly greater emotional and social adjustment upon retirement (Lavallee, Grove & Gordon, 1997), because of the lack of retirement planning due to the expectation that they would continue playing for a number of years (Sillanpää, 2011). Therefore, for this reason, the current study will focus on retirement in elite athletes caused due to a career-ending injury.

Language: en