Göran Kenttä

The research is focused on elite sports with special attention to both athletes and elite coaches. The main purpose of the research questions is to highlight factors that promote and hinder a sustainable performance development and thus sustainable sports careers among coaches and athletes.

More specifically, the research has focused on, among other things, mental health/illness, the balance between stress and recovery, as well as mindfulness and self-compassion.

Ongoing projects

1. Increase the understanding of the prevalence and experience of severe mental illness in elite sports.
2. Develop and test mindfulness and self-compassion-based interventions with the aim of promoting sustainable leadership among elite coaches.
   
   

Selected publications

• Kenttä, G., Hassmén, P., & Raglin, J.S. (2006). Mood state monitoring of training and recovery in elite kayakers. European Journal of Sport Science, 4, 245-253.
• Olusoga, P., & Kenttä, G. (2017). Desperate to quit: A narrative analysis of burnout and recovery in high performance sports coaching. The Sport Psychologist, 3, 237-248.
  
• Moesch, K., Kenttä, G., Kleinert, J., Quignon-Fleuret, C., Cecil, S., & Bertollo, M. (2018). FEPSAC position statement: Mental health disorders in elite athletes and models of service provision. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 38, 61-71.
  
• Hägglund, K., Kenttä, G., Thelwell, R.C. & Wagstaff, C.R.D. (2019). Is there an upside of vulnerability in sport? A mindfulness approach applied in the pursuit of psychological strength. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 4, 220-226.
  
• Pawsey, F., Wong, J.H.K., Kenttä, G., & Näswall, K. (a-head of publication). Daily mindfulness is associated with recovery processes among coaches – a 4 week diary study. International Sport Coaching Journal, XX, xxx-xxx. doi.org/10.1123/iscj.2020-0045.

Works with the sports movement in Sweden (mainly the Swedish Sports Confederation's department for elite sports). I participate in national research collaborations (Anders Håkansson, Lund University, and Johan Frank, KI), as well as international research collaboration with Durand-Bush at the University of Ottawa, where I have also been assessed and accepted as adjunct professor since 2016.

Other collaborations include Thelwell and Wagstaff at the University of Portsmouth, Olusoga at Sheffield Hallam University, Raglin at Indiana University-Bloomington, Raedeke at East Carolina University, Bloom at McGill University, and Bentzen at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences.