Cecilia Åkesdotter

At GIH, I have taught the coaching program, the health promotion program (formerly the health educator program) and the elite coach program.

Within the framework of the coaching program, I have mainly taught sports psychology, psychological skills training and performance psychology. In the health promotion programme, the focus has been more on stress management, behavioural change and motivational interviewing (MI).

I have previously divided my teaching at GIH with other teaching assignments at university level, for example at the School of Dance and Circus and KI where I mainly touch on themes linked to stress, overtraining and recovery in elite sports.

My background before my doctoral studies was as a physical education teacher and coach. I therefore have a great interest in teaching in the sports movement and spreading knowledge about psychology, performance and training.

My research focuses on mental illness in Swedish elite athletes at national team level. The aim is to increase knowledge about mental illness and psychiatric diagnoses among active elite athletes in Sweden.

In my research, I investigate, among other things:

• how common it is to suffer from mental illness.
• what strategies elite athletes use to deal with mental illness.
• psychiatric diagnoses in elite athletes within the framework of outpatient psychiatric care.

In my research, I use both quantitative and qualitative methodology and am affiliated with the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet (Professor Johan Franck's group).

Dissertation

Dissertation on Friday 3 February 2023 with the thesis "Psychiatric disorders in Swedish elite athletes – Prevalence, comorbidity and life stories" or in Swedish "Psychiatric diagnoses in Swedish elite athletes – prevalence, comorbidity and life stories".