Promoting mental health in youth sport

This chapter considers the effects of involvement in sport on the mental health of young people. It offers the topic with the intention of stimulating dialogue and creative responses to the question of how to promote young people's mental health in and through sport. The chapter outlines recent literature concerning mental health among young people. It also reflects on the experiences in sport as young people using dialogical approaches; and it draws narrative research into the experiences of elite and professional sports people. In the United States, mental health has been similarly broadly defined as a state of successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people, and the ability to adapt to change and to cope with adversity'. There are good reasons to believe that mental health is related to narrative processes such as people's ability and opportunity to create and share stories of their lives that fit their experience.