Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: I was intrigued by Tania Cassidy's article, arguing for a 'clearer understanding of holism' and a suggestion that interpreting its meaning is 'culturally-based'.I wondered where my interpretation had developed, so I dug into my own culture to determine where the word began to be embedded in my writing about athlete-centred coaching.I owe most of my reflection to Bennett Lombardo's original work on 'Humanistic Coaching' [1] where he embedded his writing on humanism within the social psychology discipline.Indeed, Cassidy, like Lombardo, confirmed that the influential social psychology humanism theorists, Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow were instrumental in focusing lifelong development theories through educational means.Lombardo paralleled their growth and development work and called for coaches to focus on the development of the 'whole' athlete (holism) and encourage them to enable athletes to reflect on the subjective, thrilling experience of sport.Additionally, his humanism discussions were underpinned by Jay Coakley's [2] work, with a sociocultural emphasis of the sport environment and its impact on athletes.Lombardo's humanistic theme, based on social psychology, pedagogy and sociology, came from his frustration in watching undergraduate students' culturally-based education being overinfluenced by what Nash, Sproule, and Horton [3] depict as a "tendency to privilege the technological, biophysical and scientised aspects coach education programmes" (p.530).Thus Lombardo's intentions were to ensure athlete growth and development was considered holistically, rather than just from the physical domain.
Author: Lynn Kidman
Institution: Auckland University of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1545711744