ry involved in sports, recreationally or professionally, athletic activity is vital to their sense of wholeness and is critical to self-expression" (p. 16). From the psychoanalytic perspective, individual self-definition comes through involvement in sports. By extension, therefore, pain, injury, and physical risk also become part of the individual's identity.
An example of this kind of psychological identification is Timothy Jon Curry's (1993) case study of a talented amateur wrestler named Sam. Both parents were athletic, making Sam's involvement in sports "virtually an ascribed identity; the only question was what type of athlete he would become and how far he would go in his career" (p. 276).
Some of Sam's most vivid early memories were of seeing his father continue to compete, even while injured, and he learned early on that he was expected to show little reaction to pain. Learning this lesson from his father would seem especially significant to the psychoanalyst observing the case, indicating the possible existence of "unresolved oedipal conflicts [that] may mediate . . . risk-taking activities" (Hunt, 1995, p. 440).
In this theoretical approach, the possibility of physical risk becomes an unconscious force, suppressed by the individual in order to allow him or her to continue to compete. Daniel Begel (1992, May) speculates, "'Choking' [the sudden inability to perform at top level] may be analogous to panic disorder, and adjustment disorder may present as a slump" (p. 609). The psychoanalytic perspective might even make a case for risk acceptance as a manifestation of the individual's unconscious desire to be punished for otherwise unearned athletic successes.
In contrast, the gender-based approach focuses principally on the connections among athletic prowess, physical dangers, and cultural definitions of masculinity. Such theories are more concerned with the psychology and socialization of male athletes; as...