Cecilia Åkesdotter
Lecturer
Email: cecilia.akesdotter@gih.se
Phone: +46 8-120 53 774
Visiting address: Lidingövägen 1
Room: 1224
Belongs to: Department of Physiology, Nutrition and Biomechanics, Section for Coaching and Sport Performance Development
Interests
Read more about my interests in teaching and research.
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".
Latest publications
- Article
Elite athletes seeking psychiatric treatment
2024- Cecilia Åkesdotter,
- Göran Kenttä,
- A. C. Sparkes
- Conference Paper
Clinical characteristics of treatment-seeking athletes and coaches within elite sport
2023- Göran Kenttä,
- Cecilia Åkesdotter
- Chapter
Balans och återhämtning i tränarrollen
2023- Cecilia Åkesdotter,
- Göran Kenttä
Showing 1 - 3 of 16
Other information
Professional qualifications
Lectures in sports psychology, behavior change including motivational interviewing (MI), stress and performance development (among others hired by the Swedish Sports Confederation, municipalities and companies).
Trained psychotherapist (CBT) with a focus on elite sports since 2013.
Sports psychology advisor and psychologically responsible for the Swedish Orienteering National Orienteering Team since 2013.
Sports psychology advisor who is part of the resource team and as a complement to the student health at Solna Gymnasium (NIU) since 2013.
Athletic merits
Has an athletic background as a competitor in standing martial arts; mainly ITF Taekwondo with individual European and World Championship gold medals in 2011 as his main merits.
On an amateur level, I have developed an interest in floor fighting and running in recent years.
High-resolution images
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