#256 Dr James Munnik & Prof Leon Van Niekerk - Developing Psychological Skills and Rational Thinking

In this episode I’m joined by Dr James Munnik and Prof Leon Van Niekerk. James is a Counselling Psychology Lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. James has worked with a number of athletes in his own private practice as a high performance mental coach in psychotherapy and counselling. He has special interests in sport/exercise psychology research and Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT) theory and practice. Leon is a Professor of Psychology at University of Fort Hare in South Africa. He is a registered Counselling Psychologist and has his own psychology consultancy practice where he focuses on the provision of sport psychological services to individual athletes and teams. Leon’s research interests are in the psychological well-being of athletes. This includes topics such as the development of mental toughness, sport identity and life roles, burnout, stress and anxiety among athletes, the effectiveness of mindfulness during competition, mental health in sport and the psychological health benefits of exercise. In this episode we discuss a paper entitled “Recommendations for Integrating Psychological Skills Training (PST) into Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT)” which was led by James and co-written by Dr Martin Turner and Leon.