2.3 Pendleton and the psychiatrist: a decade later

An athlete’s motivational environment has a huge influence on their well-being, and the coach–athlete relationship is a key factor in developing a positive motivational climate (Reinboth and Duda, 2006).

In 2014, two Olympic gold medals later and now in retirement, Pendleton reflected on her first meeting in Switzerland with Peters, her psychiatrist. A psychiatrist is someone who is trained as a doctor but who has specialised with further training in mental health. Peters took a more unusual route into working in sport than most people, and he and Pendleton enjoyed a fruitful professional relationship.

Listen to their thoughts in the next activity.

Activity 3 Reflecting on Switzerland and the mental side of training

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

Listen to this conversation between Pendleton and Peters, which was part of a BBC broadcast. What surprises you about this conversation and what did you learn from it?

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Transcript: Audio 1

STEVE PETERS

All I remember from that meeting was two hours of you crying and me thinking, OK. I looked at the machine that sat in front me, and this is the way I approach seems rather cold. And I'm thinking, you've got a very distressed young woman who clearly hasn't achieved her potential. I'm being told that from the cycling experts.

And from my point of view, I'm thinking, this isn't the normal state I'm seeing. This girl doesn't do this permanently. She's distressed and trying to express it. She's nowhere to go. I'm going to be that catch all. I'm going to then take all this emotion. I'm going to eventually absorb it, move it to one side, and then I'm going to find out what's underneath it.

And towards the end of the interview, I'm not sure if you remember, I tried to sort of box all your emotion quickly and then said what do you want, which was very different because, at that point, you were very reactive. You were just a reactive person. This was happening, and I react to it. And I made you go proactive and said, what do you want as a dream? And you suddenly come out of it. And this little voice said, I want to go to the Olympics and win a medal. And I think that's when I realised that's what you wanted, and that's what we're going to get. And everything else was just interference.

VICTORIA PENDLETON

Gosh, there was a lot of interference. I remember feeling, first of all, I think my primary feeling was feeling a little bit embarrassed because you kind of got me straight away. And I said, can this guy read minds? And I really felt like you were the first-- I've just met you, and you were the first person that really understood where I was coming from. And that was quite sort of humbling and quite bewildering. But also for me, it was like, oh gosh. There is hope. There is hope for me out there.

And it was a real turning point. I was lost and confused and very tearful, very tearful. I did go away thinking, oh gosh, I'm never going to see that man again. I think I've scared him away. I've almost flood him out the room with tears. So it was quite incredible really for you to be able to pull that from me. Did you know you were going to get something positive at the end of it, or were you just hoping that if you boxed my emotion, I might be able to pull through with something and give you a sign?

STEVE PETERS

I was fairly convinced you would get there. I went back to Dave Brailsford who asked me what I thought. And I obviously just getting to know Dave then. I remember saying to him, this is the long haul. This is going to be 12 months. And I think it was about that time, it was just before Athens about 12 months later, and that was when you started really dominating. And it was an educated guess.

But again, this is my expertise and field, so I should be pretty good at it after this length of time. What I was looking for are the factors that I thought this is what we build our strength, our foundation on. And there was a gritty determination. There was a definite will to actually succeed. And there was a recognition that what's happening to me is unacceptable. And I don't want to be in this place.

So you didn't come over as this victim, which is always a worry if somebody takes that position and won't move. You were more or less saying give me a solution. So I think these are all positive factors from my perspective to say this girl will eventually move. How far she'll go, I don't know.

And also, in back of my mind, I'm thinking I've got to work with your coaching staff because, at that point, you had not got the strength or speed that you needed to win this medal. And my job was to get you to see that and drive you to actually train harder to get it. And to be fair. I mean, with yourself, myself, and the coach, I think we worked then as a team. And so I think that's why I thought, yes, it will be successful, but it'll take some time.

You asked just earlier. You said, where did I fit on the spectrum of being someone who dominates in power. That wasn't you. You're at the other end of the spectrum. It was almost a need to prove yourself to yourself. And again, I think I've seen that quite commonly in a number of athletes, and it tends to be more female athletes than male athletes. Male athletes tend to be more on the dominance-- I've got to prove my ego to the world.

I think you didn't really want to do that. My impression was that I want to prove it to myself. And I think if we'd have taken you out of cycling and put you somewhere else, you may have actually felt comfortable just to do it somewhere else in a different arena. It's not just cycling. But I thought at the time from your background with your dad and the way you'd been brought up in cycling, you would hone in on that, therefore, that had to be where you were going to do it. But I think had you been given another field, you might easily have gone into that field and succeeded again.

VICTORIA PENDLETON

Is it possible to take someone who's very physically talented in a sport who wants to succeed but doesn't have the mental ability to really maybe endure the training or push themselves that extra sort of distance in order to be a champion? Can you train it? Or if they haven't got those sort of attributes you talked about, is it kind of a lost cause? What do you think?

STEVE PETERS

You can train it. The best example is you.

End transcript: Audio 1

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Discussion

It was striking how much rapport there was between them; they obviously know each other very well. It was surprising that the self-harm was not mentioned but perhaps being on public radio influenced this.

In terms of what you may have learned: you may have noticed the confidence, possibly with hindsight bias, with which Peters could identify a ‘gritty determination’ and ‘will to succeed’ in Pendleton at the time. He suggests that she probably would have been successful in another field such was her drive. He also commented on Pendleton’s ‘need to prove herself to herself’ and that this internal focus was claimed to be more prevalent in females. Some may dispute this.

Victoria Pendleton, by her own admission, had perfectionistic personality traits. Perfectionists have a much higher risk of experiencing burnout and overtraining. This is why you will turn your attention to understanding perfectionism in more detail in the following section.