UNT psychologist to counsel U.S. Olympic athletes in Beijing

by Taylor Short of of North Texas Daily

Sometimes a good swift kick to the head can work just as well as talking.

While U.S. Olympic athletes face the most challenging events of their lives this summer at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, one UNT psychologist hopes to take the edge off.

Karen Cogan, assistant professor of psychology, is preparing for her third trip to the Olympics on Aug. 5 to assist the U.S. Olympic Tae kwon do Team, which competes in Korean martial arts.

"I assist athletes in learning mental skills like relaxation training, imagery, goal setting, concentration, positive thinking," she said, "and then developing a personalized mental training routine to prepare them for competition."

Cogan also works with coaches, trainers, managers and nutritionists to ensure optimum performance from the athletes. She said she worked with the U.S. Freestyle Mogul ski team for 10 years and just began assisting the Tae kwon do team in September 2007 in Beijing for an Olympics test event.

"Coaches and other team personnel come to me if something goes wrong and we look at options," she said. "Sometimes people just need someone to vent to, and that is me."

Cogan said athletes could experience a variety of issues from anxiousness and losing focus to "choking" under pressure.

"Sometimes we even see depression and eating disorders in athletes," she said. "The issues are as diverse as the athletes themselves."

Judith McConnell, director of Counseling and Testing Services, said she has worked with Cogan since 1998.

"She works with UNT student athletes here as well," McConnell said. "She also helps train some of our doctoral students in the psychology department who want to be sports psychologists."

Cogan became a licensed psychologist and certified sport psychology consultant after receiving a master's degree in kinesiology with a sport psychology concentration and Ph.D. in psychology, both from the University of California in Los Angeles. She co-wrote a sports psychology book with Olympic gold-medalist Peter Vidmar and has been with UNT since 1992.

"I was a competitive gymnast for 10 years, including two years at UCLA, where I developed an interest in sport psychology," she said. "At the time it was not an established field, but I was struck by the ways the mind affects an athlete's performance."