The Therapeutic Method is also oriented towards opinions and misconceptions of ourselves and defeatist thoughts. We may show a tendency to be influenced by “I must”, “I must not” and “I have to”: (“I must practice”; “I must not let myself be influenced by my emotions”; “I have to overcome this situation”). These thoughts are emotional triggers that achieve physical and psychological deterioration when used frequently. The instructor’s role will be to make the skier reflect on these beliefs and replace them with more productive ones.
Some basic methodological notions for the application of this rational-emotive ‘therapy’ in a ski lesson can be:
- The instructor manifests to the learner that affective states originate from the personal interpretation of situations in the mountain.
- The instructor proposes to focus on the present moment and with the objective of preventing the continuation of the vicious circle of past wrong interpretations that are the cause of the generation of emotions and current maladaptive behaviors.
- The learner and the instructor agree to engage together in the individualization of difficulties by applying dispositions to modify negative interpretations such as the following: “The slope is difficult for me”; “It makes me fall or ski badly”; “I feel like I won’t be able to…”.
- Through the following questions the instructor tries to bring to light the detrimental interpretations that lead to poor performance: “What would you like to do with the way you ski or deal with challenging situations?”; “Where would you like to go with your skiing?”; “What is holding you back?”; “What decisions do you think you should make?”.
The situational exposure
This approach is based on the almost permanent exposure of the learner to situational stimuli that provoke anxiety or phobic attitudes with the aim of reducing them to acceptable levels.
Continuous and gradual exposure to anxiety-causing situations makes it possible to gradually reduce anxiety until unpleasant emotional responses are significantly managed.
Exposure to mountain contexts that generate anxiety, fear, or dread is one of the most effective ways to manage them, but only if the skier is determined to do so. The instructor’s strategy is to propose an order of situations that generate negative emotions from lesser to greater and encourage the learner to deal with them gradually.
The cognitive-behavioral approach
It is generally thought that our psychological problems while skiing lie solely in our preconceptions, although in reality they stem from inappropriate behaviors in the environment.
As we tend not to realize that our habits and beliefs dominate many of our behaviors, the cognitive-behavioral approach is oriented towards developing or improving our ability to manage the situation by correcting our internal dialogue.
An example of this internal dialogue is saying to ourselves: “I am not going to be able to get off this run”, whereas it would be more productive to affirm: “I am going to get off it a little at a time”. In this way, the application of the cognitive-behavioral modality helps us to overcome our inhibitions and ways of thinking in order to develop and increase our ability to cope with challenging situations in which anxiety impairs our behavior.
The cognitive-behavioral ski lesson attempts to determine how the skier learns certain behaviors at the beginner and intermediate stages. This method relates learning theories to information processing because the way he processes information relates to his behavior.
