Sport psychology meets psychoanalysis in this deep dive into the Athlete Apperception Technique (AAT) — a powerful, yet underused projective tool developed from the legacy of the Rorschach and TAT. With the birth of the AAT, we open up the conversation on what truly lies beneath performance. Discover what happens when athletes narrate ambiguous images, and how this "Blade Runner" test for the soul might reveal more than expected.

In this episode, I had the opportunity to speak with Professor Mark B. Andersen about the AAT and to explore its implication for sport psychology and how it could help athletes beyond their performance issues.

Mark B. Andersen, PhD, is an adjunct professor at Halmstad University in Sweden. He lives in Australia and collaborates intercontinentally with his Swedish colleagues in the areas of research, training, and supervision in applied sport and exercise psychology. Andersen is a registered psychologist in Australia and is licensed to practice psychology in the United States. He is the former editor of the Professional Practice section of the international journal The Sport Psychologist. He has published 9 books, and more than 190 refereed journal articles and book chapters. He has made more than 100 national and international conference presentations, including 17 invited keynote addresses on four continents.

As a Supervisor, he contributed to Dr. Petah Gibbs' PhD research study: Gibbs, P. M., Marchant, D. B., & Andersen, M. B. (2016). Development of a clinical sport projective assessment method: The Athlete Apperception Technique (AAT). Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 9(1), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676x.2016.1180637

Abstract

Within the field of applied sport psychology, there is an increasing appreciation for diversity of training models, research methodologies, and therapeutic approaches. For example, psychodynamic formulations and interpretations have begun to appear more frequently in the sport psychology literature. In keeping with emerging psychodynamic viewpoints, we believe the time is right to introduce a qualitative sport-specific projective instrument: the Athlete Apperception Technique (AAT). The AAT represents a new technique based on psychodynamic theory and established projective test construction principles. It was designed primarily as a clinical tool for practitioners and not as an instrument for quantitative research into personality. It does, however, have potential research applications, especially in clinical sport case study research and narrative analysis investigations. The AAT produces an idiographic understanding of athletes’ characteristics, anxieties, and motivations (both conscious and unconscious). We briefly review the literature on the development of projective techniques, explain the rationale underlying the development of the AAT, and present three sequential studies to explain the AAT image selection procedures that led to the final product.

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Sincerely,

Mathias Alberton

Founder CEO at Martial Attitude C.I.C.

BPS trainee Sport Psychologist

MSc in Applied Sport Psychology at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, London, UK.