BOARD CERTIFICATION in SPORT PSYCHOLOGY
The American Board of Sport Psychology was founded in 2000. Its mission is to advance practice, education and training standards in the field of applied sport psychology and provide licensed psychologists and other eligible practitioners the opportunity to achieve competencies and board certification in sport psychology.
The ABSP certification roadmap is extensive and rigorous and is comparable to graduate level education. Certification cannot merely be attained by a review of credentials, past education, degree or licensure status and previous accomplishments or based on an individual’s background or experience as a sport psychology practitioner or on the basis of one’s stature.
All candidates for board certification must complete the ABSP training roadmap, commencing with topic-specific study, task modules and practitioner’s challenge that lead to an applied practicum and culminating final project that must be of a publishable quality.
Board Certified Sport Psychologist Requirements/Eligibility
- Doctorate in Psychology from a regionally accredited institution/university and license to practice psychology in any state or 2.) Master’s Degree in Allied Fields that have licensed professional status or 3.) Ph.D/M.A/M.S with License Exempt status or 4.) Board Certification in Sport Psychology for Researchers and/or Coaches (contact ABSP for details).
- Completion of the ABSP training program (scroll down) including:
- Pre-practicum knowledge test with a score of at least 80% and completion of all Practitioner Challenges based on required ABSP readings
- Practicum consisting of prescribed Applied Sport Psychology didactic and applied tasks
- Final project with complete assessments, intervention/mental training and outcome analytics
- Final project written report and oral discussion session
- Experience requirements: 75 complete or approved partial athlete assessment and intervention case consultations with comprehensive Athlete’s Profile-guided evaluation, intervention efficiency and intervention efficacy testing with pre-intervention and intervention phases using the ABSP-Protocol. Total approximate sport psychology- specific experience hours: 750* hours *Hours include pre-practicum study and research, practicum and final project time during the mandated entry level training as well as other documented experience hours that are approved by the ABSP Board of Directors.
