Q&A with Dr. Tom Ferraro, Sports Psychologist

Q&A

with Dr. Tom Ferraro, Sports Psychologist

Dr. Tom Ferraro is a Long Island-based sport psychologist who has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the London Times. He has worked with world renowned professional athletes in the world of golf, tennis, figure skating, soccer, baseball, and basketball. His expertise has allowed him to address things such as yips, self-defeat and slumps, and his book, Unpicking Depth Sport Psychology: Case Studies in the Unconscious, will be released this fall.

Long Island Tennis Magazine sat down with Dr. Ferraro and talked with him about the psychology of tennis, and takes us inside the minds of gifted tennis players.

What makes tennis so unique?

Each sport presents the athlete with its own special challenge. Boxing calls for great courage, basketball requires speed, soccer demands creativity and golfers need a steady heart rate. The game of tennis demands that you face down an opponent and have no mercy on them. Tennis places you in realm of confrontation with a rival and says ‘prove yourself’. In the past, we had Navratilova versus Evert, McEnroe versus Borg, Sampras versus Agassi, and most recently Federer versus Nadal. All of these are great rivalries. Tennis is unique in its requirement that you face down your opponent every point.

What are the common psychological problems in tennis?

The most common problem I see in my tennis players is anxiety. The anxiety may be expressed with the yips or with feelings of frozenness or weakness. The yips are caused when one has extreme tightness or tension in the arms or hands. Usually the anxiety builds up over time, the player’s defensive system collapses and the yips emerge. The cause of the yips may be relate to underlying unresolved losses that are building up or a fear of your own aggression and power.

Are there any other common problems you see in tennis?

An interesting problem that I see in younger tennis stars is what we call regression. When things start to go downhill in a match, younger players tend to get angry and then pout and sometimes cry. This demonstrates the defense of regression when a person reverts to a former stage of development. We need to talk them through this and help them gain a more mature way of handling anger and disappointment.

Why is it necessary to understand and treat the athlete’s unconscious?

If you try to ignore the player’s unconscious, you are left with providing them with a variety of selftalk and behavioral tips. And these behavioral tips tend to be weak and short lasting in effect. As the saying goes, ‘you may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with you’. One must address the underlying conflicts all athletes have. Despite what people want to believe, the athlete’s past is the ruler of the present. The future of sport psychology will be found in depth sport psychology. Certainly, it is important to provide the embattled athlete with tips to suppress anxiety and control anger but if you don’t get to understand and treat the underlying issues you will inevitably fail in your efforts. That is the weakness of sport psychology in its present state and why I make efforts to educate my patients and their parents and coaches on the deeper workings of the mind. Most people intuitively know this to be true.

How is a depth sport psychology different from regular sport psychology?

My work as a depth sport psychologist goes further than a regular sport psychologist by providing the athlete with helpful techniques to control anxiety and anger but in addition, helping them to understand why they are self-defeating. We work on establishing self-esteem, improving psychological defenses, helping them to get comfortable with their own aggression and give them insight into what makes them tick. They will often need help with time management, the jealousy and envy from others and how to accept the challenges of recruitment and the pressures and distractions that success brings with it.