Many top athletes are under high pressure and high mental and physical stress. High training load, competitions and constant pressure to succeed are chronic stress factors, which can facilitate mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, sleep or eating disorders. The performance-based environment can make it difficult to admit and seek professional help.
Our special outpatient clinic offers comprehensive psychiatric-psychotherapeutic diagnostics and possibly also therapy to athletes in all performance categories. We are part of a Germany-wide network of university special consultation, which emerged from the Department of Sport Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the German Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology (DGPPN) (https://www.dgppn.de/die-dgppn/referate/sportpsychiatrie.html). They cooperate with the Robert-Enke-Foundation (https://robert-enke-stiftung.de/).
Furthermore, we are intensively involved both clinically and scientifically with the effects of physical activity and sport on the psyche of healthy people and people with mental illnesses. In this context, we conduct clinical and preclinical studies on the relationships between motor function, neuroplasticity and cognition.
Dr. Anne-Kathrin Gellner
Aileen Sitter