Performance PTSD

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health condition that develops following a traumatic event or continuing events characterized by intrusive thoughts about the incident, recurrent distress/anxiety, flashbacks, and avoidance of similar situations.? People living in war torn countries or children exposed to sexual, physical, or mental abuse over a long period of time can develop PTSD.? I also found that athletes, whose identity is wrapped up in their career choice can also suffer this disabling condition.

While he may never admit it, one just needs to look at David Duvall to see the effects of Performance PTSD.? Duval received his PGA Tour card in 1995, earning it after becoming two-time ACC Player of the Year, 1993 National Player of the Year, and playing two years on the?Nike Tour?(where he won twice). Between?1997?and?2000, Duval finished all four seasons top-5 on the PGA Tour's money list, including being the?leading money winner?and scoring leader in?1998. In addition to his major title, he also won the?1997 Tour Championship?and the?1999 Players Championship.

Following Duval's victory at the 2001 Open Championship, he never won again on the PGA Tour and his performance declined dramatically due to injuries and various medical conditions. I’m also sure that after a while, his poor performance was fueled by an intense conscious or unconscious fear of failure. As a result, he lost his tour card in?2011. After his professional golf career slowed, he became a golf analyst and commentator, currently working for?Golf Channel?and?ESPN.

I believe this was also the fate of an Asian Tour player I worked with.? He came to the states to work on his putting with a friend of mine was considered one of the best at the time.? Because he saw that the player was suffering from attentional issues, he recommended the player contact me.

After working with him for only a few weeks, he went back home and did very well on tour, even winning a tournament in Australia.? Then things seemed to fall a part for him.? Several years later he flew back to the sates and we continued where we left off.? Unfortunately, I would not witness the depth of his fear of failure until I seen him completely fall apart on a European Tour event.

None of the simple attentional skill training appeared to repair his destroyed ego.? I had to introduce him to the Recall/Rewrite Protocol, which has golfers recall a painful episode then re-write the script so that it had a successful ending.? Not until the player repeats this protocol enough times till the imagined successful events reaches the same strength of memory created by the failed events and all the times that memory is replayed in their mind will the individual be able to perform at the level they achieved prior to the traumatic event or events.

Think of it as immersion therapy, where people suffering from certain phobias are placed in the situation that they deathly fear.? The hope is that the situation becomes so trivialized that it loses its power over the person’s consciousness.? The Recall/Rewrite Protocol approaches fear in a similar way, but in a safe place where they are not actually performing.? By using techniques to calm their nerves, clear their mind, an untense their body, they’re able to rewrite the script that has played in their heads for far too long.

If you’d like to learn more about the Recall/Rewrite Protocol or any of the techniques I use, contact me here or at [email protected] for a copy of my FREE eBook, Target Oriented Golf:? Training the Eyes, Mind, and Body for Success.

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