Voices For Suicide Prevention

Many people see a young, powerful and supremely fluid athlete on a field or court and think, 'What it must be like to have the world in the palm of your hand?' But the truth is, mental health concerns and suicide in collegiate student-athletes have increased over the past ten years. There are immense pressures on these young people from the rigors of practice, class work and of course, performance on game day. Not to mention, the ruthless and many times, unfair criticism of their athleticism on social media. Dr. Jamey Houle at Ohio State University knows all sides of this: he was an All-American gymnast and NCAA champion who went on to get his PhD in Counseling Psychology. He's been a sports psychologist at OSU for three years and his core responsibilities include providing and managing sports psychology services to OSU student athletes. This podcast episode derived from a webinar presentation to discuss intervention strategies with Dr. Houle to address suicide prevention through resilience building and positive coping skill development hosted by OSPF's Megan Rowe.