Sport and Psychoanalysis

<P><I>Sport and Psychoanalysis: What Sport Reveals about Our Unconscious Desires Fantasies and Fears</I> explores the intersection of sport and psychoanalysis emphasizing the often-overlooked psycho-social dimensions underpinning the experience of sport. By challenging the idea that sport offers an “escape” from reality—a realm separate to the politics of everyday life—each chapter critically considers the unconscious desires fantasies and fears that underpin the sporting spectacle for both participants and spectators. Indeed beyond simply applying psychoanalysis to sport this book proposes how sport can be used to pose questions to psychoanalysis thus using sport as a medium to elucidate key psychoanalytic ideas and concepts. This volume addresses a diverse range of theorists including Sigmund Freud Jacques Lacan Lou Andreas-Salome? Norman O. Brown and Frantz Fanon and applies them across a variety of topics and sports including NFL coaching Manny Pacquiao play football basketball baseball poker and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup therefore providing a unique understanding of the cultural social and psychic significance of sports. A timely and relevant collection this book will appeal to scholars and practitioners interested in understanding sport from both the cultural and clinical application of psychoanalytic theory as well as academics and practitioners in sport studies psychology sociology education and cultural studies.</P><P></P>