Championing Mental Health in Sports
The Work of Natalie Durand-Bush and the CCMHS
Written by Lucas Yang | Edited by Marc Louie
The Canadian Centre for Mental Health and Sport (CCMHS) is one of the leading forces in Canada supporting athletes, coaches, and performing artists in reaching their performance goals while prioritizing their mental well-being.
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Their staff offers a breadth of different perspectives, from research and education to one-on-one care from mental health practitioners, ensuring that the needs of their clientele are fully met. This range of services is what distinguishes the CCMHS.
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At the heart of the CCMHS team is Natalie Durand-Bush, a mental health performance consultant pioneering the movement around mental health in athletics. She is one of many individuals within the CCMHS who offer a unique set of skills to those struggling with mental health.
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The CCMHS prioritizes catering to the mental health of those competing in high-performance sport; however, their mission also relies on distinct pillars such as education, outreach, and innovative research.
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If anything has become apparent, the past 10 years have shown an influx of professional athletes and high-profile individuals being open about their mental health struggles. This influx has provided the basis for organizations like the CCMHS to conduct research that is changing the way society perceives the mental health landscape.
“Probably at least, in the last 10 years, there are more and more athletes and even coaches saying that they experience more challenges, more difficulties, with regards to performing and being able to stay healthy,” Durand-Bush said.
Photo by CCMHS
This societal shift has laid the opportunity for specialists such as Durand-Bush and others within the CCMHS to conduct research to better suit the needs of their clientele.
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Social media and smartphones are areas of expertise in Durand-Bush’s research, and in her eyes, are key contributors to the mental health struggles of athletes in the past decade.
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Social media has created an avenue through which athletes are vulnerable to increased ridicule, which can be detrimental to their mental health and on-court performance. Durand-Bush emphasizes that the demographic mostly impacted by social media is the younger adolescent age group, who are the future of high-performance sport.
“Social media definitely adds an additional pressure to conform, and you add that with the pressure from parents and coaches, when you think about what our youth are going through in this day and age, it’s quite honestly really sad,” Durand-Bush said.
Another critical factor in sports that can impact an athlete’s mental health is injuries. Injuries are not just a painful and taxing experience for an athlete’s body, but also a segue into feeling insecure and alone. Addressing the mental well-being of athletes going through injuries is just as essential as catering to their physical needs.
“For some athletes, they fear losing their spot on the team, they fear losing their scholarship, or their contract not being renewed, and these are just a few factors that can impact athletes mentally when it comes to injuries,” Durand-Bush said.
Mental health consultants are in a position to help athletes through these issues and provide the necessary support that leads to breaking through their injuries and coming back better than they were. Being able to control what you can control and help athletes manage their relationships within the sport environment is a key part in helping athletes persevere through injuries, according to Durand-Bush.
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A continuing theme in Durand-Bush’s approach to mental health is managing emotions and relationships. In any high-performance environment, athletes have to deal with other individuals, whether coaches, teammates, or competitors. Being able to manage these relationships is a key factor in excelling mentally. Stress and anxiety often come from these external factors, according to Durand-Bush.
“Managing relationships with people in the sport environment is essential in managing stress and anxiety,” she said.
When asked in a more general sense about how to implement psychological tactics across an athlete’s training—whether relating to internal pressure, such as pressure to perform a certain skill, or an external factor, such as meeting the expectation of a coach or parent—Durand-Bush emphasizes that one must trust the process.
“There’s no quick fix,” she said.
This “no quick fix” attitude doesn’t just apply to athletes, but coaches as well. Though coaches’ mental health needs to be prioritized just as much as athletes’, the education element of the CCMHS is crucial in enabling coaches to recognize mental health struggles in their athletes.
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Coaches need to be able to acquire the skills to prioritize their well-being just as much as athletes, and according to Durand-Bush, an interesting process occurs when coaches seek to help their athletes with their mental well-being. In fact, when coaches seek to help their athletes with their mental health, they can actually improve their own mental health at the same time.
“Our mental health literacy program has helped over 400 coaches improve their ability to recognize mental health struggles in athletes, but what’s interesting is how our program has helped coaches recognize mental health in themselves as well,” Durand-Bush emphasized.
Being able to slowly implement these strategies—whether from a literacy program through the CCMHS or a one-on-one consultation—will lead to the development and consistent use of the skills required to pursue mental excellence. Pursuing mental excellence, according to Durand-Bush, is a slow burn if anything, and asking for help is only the start of this process.
“The best thing for those looking to better their mental health is for them to work on a long-term basis,” Durand-Bush said.
The past 10 years have shown drastic improvements in the way society perceives mental health in both athletes and coaches. If history repeats itself, the next 10 years will show even more progress in the mental health movement that society is experiencing. When asked about what to expect in the coming years, specifically in the context of combatting mental health struggles, Durand-Bush didn’t highlight a specific strategy or action but rather a phrase that she hopes athletes, coaches, and everyday individuals will take to heart.
“I need help.”