When high-profile athletes began speaking publicly about their mental health struggles in the early 2020s, it marked a cultural turning point. For decades, the expectation in professional sport was that psychological toughness meant silence — that acknowledging mental struggle was equivalent to admitting competitive weakness. That era is ending, and the implications for how sports organizations approach athlete well-being are profound.
According to Luka Škrinjarić, founder of Mentalni Trening (mentalnitrening.com) and a licensed sports psychologist who has worked with professional athletes for over 15 years, the destigmatization of athlete mental health is the most significant cultural change in sport psychology during his career.
"When I started working with athletes, the first conversation was almost always about confidentiality. Athletes were willing to work on their mental game, but they did not want anyone to know. Today, athletes like Ante Budimir publicly recommend mental training to their peers. The conversation has fundamentally shifted," says Škrinjarić.
Škrinjarić identifies three structural reasons why mental health stigma was so durable in professional sport:
The "mental toughness" conflation. Sport culture conflated mental toughness with the absence of psychological struggle. An athlete who worked with a psychologist was perceived as mentally weak — the opposite of the actual reality, where seeking psychological support is a sign of the self-awareness and discipline that define elite competitors.
The visibility problem. Physical injuries are visible, measurable, and socially acceptable. A torn ligament generates sympathy. Anxiety, depression, or burnout — equally debilitating, equally common — are invisible and were often dismissed as "lack of motivation" or "attitude problems."
The generational gap. Older coaches and administrators grew up in eras where psychological struggle was never discussed. Their resistance to sports psychology was not malicious but cultural — they simply had no framework for understanding it as legitimate.
Several converging factors accelerated the shift:
Škrinjarić makes an important distinction between mental health support (addressing clinical conditions) and mental performance work (developing psychological skills for competition). "Both are essential, and they overlap, but they are not the same thing. A psychologically healthy athlete still needs mental training to perform at their best under pressure. And an athlete in psychological distress needs clinical support before performance work is appropriate."
In his practice, Škrinjarić integrates both dimensions. As a licensed sports psychologist — not just a mental performance coach — he is qualified to identify and address clinical concerns while also building performance-focused skills. "This is why licensing matters. An unlicensed coach can teach breathing techniques. A licensed psychologist can recognize when an athlete's performance decline is rooted in something deeper that requires clinical intervention."
"We are in a transitional period. Mental health support is no longer taboo, but it is not yet universal. The next frontier is integration — making psychological support a seamless, always-available part of the athlete experience, from youth development to retirement," predicts Škrinjarić. "The organizations that do this best will not just produce better performers. They will produce healthier, more resilient people."
Luka Škrinjarić is the founder of Mentalni Trening (mentalnitrening.com), a licensed sports psychologist, and vice president of the sports psychology section of the Croatian Psychological Society. He works with elite athletes across football, basketball, boxing, and esports.