{"id":599815,"date":"2023-01-21T12:49:48","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T18:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/21\/nfl-has-been-slow-to-embrace-mental-health-support-for-players\/"},"modified":"2023-01-21T12:49:48","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T18:49:48","slug":"nfl-has-been-slow-to-embrace-mental-health-support-for-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/21\/nfl-has-been-slow-to-embrace-mental-health-support-for-players\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Has Been Slow to Embrace Mental Health Support for Players"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field in the middle of the \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d game in Cincinnati on Jan. 2, Carrie Hastings, half a continent away, understood what she needed to do \u2014 and right away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a few guys that I sort of immediately knew I should check in on,\u201d said Hastings, the Los Angeles Rams\u2019 sports psychologist and mental health clinician. \u201cA couple of spouses and significant others, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hastings\u2019 familiarity with the Rams\u2019 personnel, and with which players might be emotionally traumatized after watching Hamlin\u2019s shocking medical emergency, was the product of her having spent six seasons with the club \u2014 getting to know the athletes, meeting rookies when they first arrive, and making herself a regular presence at the Rams\u2019 facility.<\/p>\n

Across the NFL, no such continuity of care exists. The league is working its way toward the kind of mental health support for its players, coaches, and staff in which a range of counseling is standard and readily accessible.<\/p>\n

It was just over three years ago, in 2019, that the NFL implemented a formal program<\/a> to manage its employees\u2019 mental health needs. That came as part of a new collective bargaining agreement, after the NFL Players Association pushed hard for its creation. Among other things, the agreement mandates that each team have a licensed behavioral health clinician on staff.<\/p>\n

But individual franchises still have great latitude in implementing that directive. Some have full-time sports psychologists; others employ clinicians part time, while a few contract with outside providers and make them available to players, Hastings said. And clinicians aren\u2019t required to have any sports background, which some sports psychologists see as a critical flaw.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very specialized area,\u201d said Sam Maniar, a psychologist who consults for the Cleveland Browns and formerly worked as the team\u2019s full-time clinician. \u201cThe environment of athletics, and especially at the highest level, is something that does require specialization, and not every clinician being brought into the NFL has that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hastings was a sprinter and hurdler in her undergraduate years at Notre Dame, has deep professional experience with athletes, and is listed in the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee\u2019s registry for sports psychology and mental training. She keeps her private practice a short drive from the Rams\u2019 training facility in Agoura Hills, northwest of Los Angeles, and though technically a part-time employee, Hastings said she is at the facility three or four times a week \u201cand basically on call 24\/7 during the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that capacity, Hastings has worked to forge a foundation of trust with elite athletes who often think of a sports psychologist only in terms of getting them primed to compete.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s often the case that a player comes in for something performance-related, and that opens up the door for conversations in other areas of mental health,\u201d she said. \u201cThe relationship deepens.\u201d<\/p>\n

That kind of ingrained presence with teams is crucial, clinicians say, particularly as some athletes have begun to speak more openly about the mental and emotional challenges they face and have indirectly encouraged their peers to be more open to getting help.<\/p>\n

Tennis sensation Naomi Osaka<\/a>, Olympic gold medalists Simone Biles and Michael Phelps, NBA stars Kevin Love<\/a> and DeMar DeRozan all have publicly discussed their mental health challenges over the past decade, and several have led campaigns to raise awareness. \u201cI credit them for discussing their struggles and the great benefits they received by accessing some care that was available to them,\u201d said Maniar, who runs an athletic performance center in Ohio and works with college and high school football teams beyond his relationship with the Browns.<\/p>\n

The NFL is a difficult arena for such conversations. Players in the league are accustomed to working through all manner of pain and injury practically as a job condition, and for much of the league\u2019s existence, its athletes essentially were trained to show no vulnerability.<\/p>\n

The implementation of a leaguewide program, though an important milestone, hasn\u2019t radically accelerated the pace of change. \u201cI think the NFL is still a dinosaur in that respect,\u201d Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers told<\/a> The New York Times two seasons ago. \u201cThere\u2019s a stigma around talking about feelings, struggles, and dealing with stress. There\u2019s a lot of vernacular that seems to tag it as weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The players union has become more aggressive in addressing the issue. \u201cNFL players are often seen as the pinnacle of masculinity, and because caring about our own mental well-being and seeking support has not historically been associated with masculinity, too many of us do not prioritize that aspect of our health,\u201d union president JC Tretter, an eight-year NFL veteran, wrote in a 2021 blog post<\/a> to players, urging them to make use of the resources available.<\/p>\n

Hamlin\u2019s highly unusual emergency, in which he required on-field CPR before being transported to a hospital from the Cincinnati stadium where the Bills and Bengals were playing, \u201creally created anxiety in some players, and it triggered others,\u201d Hastings said. In addition to contacting several players individually, she sent out a message across the Rams organization reminding the athletes, coaches, and staff she was available to talk.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of them were receptive,\u201d Hastings said. \u201cThe elephant in the room is mortality. The players know they can be hurt, and they\u2019ve all dealt with injuries, but this included an element over which they had no control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players from the Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals stood in stunned silence as Hamlin lay on the field. Days later, Buffalo players still struggled to articulate their feelings. \u201cThe scene replays over and over in your head,\u201d quarterback Josh Allen said during a news conference, fighting back tears. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to describe how I felt and how my teammates felt in that moment. It\u2019s something we\u2019ll never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin\u2019s subsequent progress, including his release from hospital care to convalesce at home, \u201cwill help alleviate some of the trauma the players have been undergoing,\u201d said Dr. Joshua Norman, an Ohio State University sports psychiatrist who often works with athletes on processing emotions. \u201cBut even though they try to compartmentalize things, these players have witnessed a serious injury. Some of them will have a strong reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Claudia Reardon, a University of Wisconsin psychiatrist, said the term \u201cvicarious trauma\u201d applies in this case. \u201cThe original traumatic event didn\u2019t happen to you personally, but it is experienced as traumatic to have witnessed it or learned about it,\u201d Reardon said. Reactions range from fear and helplessness to nightmares and flashbacks, she said, and some athletes will try to avoid \u201cpeople, places, or things that remind them of the trauma they witnessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see a few players retire early,\u201d Maniar said. \u201cAnd a big concern is a player going out there and playing hesitantly or in fear. That is a sure way to get hurt in a sport like football, and this is a league where the contracts are not guaranteed. You\u2019ve heard the saying \u2018NFL means not for long.\u2019 The players feel that pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NFL\u2019s best chance to make big strides in its mental health coverage, clinicians say, may derive from the simple fact that it is continually drafting and developing new talent. \u201cThe younger generation is just more sophisticated about mental health, period,\u201d said Norman. \u201cThey come to a college campus often already having established some connection with their mental health needs, through counseling or other means. They\u2019re more open to the idea of dealing with their mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within franchise complexes, the work goes on. Both Hastings and Maniar were hired by their NFL teams years before the league made a clinician mandatory, and both made sure they kept an office away from the practice facility for those players who weren\u2019t comfortable seeing them at work. But lately, Hastings said, that, too, is changing.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayers are talking about these kinds of issues with each other more often, and they\u2019re doing so very publicly,\u201d she said. \u201cIn many ways, we\u2019ve been building out our mental health protocol since I was brought on in 2017.\u201d In the NFL, it is proving a slow turn.<\/p>\n

This story was produced by KHN<\/a>, which publishes California Healthline<\/a>, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Mark Kreidler<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field in the middle of the \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d game in Cincinnati on Jan. 2, Carrie Hastings, half a continent away, understood what she needed to do \u2014 and right away. \u201cI had a few guys that I sort of immediately knew<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":599816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3742,4492],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-599815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-embrace","8":"category-mental"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}