Okay, this is a multiple-parts question which probably doesn’t have exact numbers, but I’m still hoping for the general professional opinions of our esteemed psychological dopers.
I’m also going to be a bit long-winded trying to explain what my hypotheticals are.
The suicide of the soccer goalieRobert Enke was a shock not only to his family (who had never suspected anything) but also to his teammates and fans, because everybody had expected him to be the opposite of depressed and having self-esteem problems because he was a very successful goalie with no outward problems.
This discussion spawned an attempt for a program in German pro soccer to encourage players suffering from depression to openly admit it and get help instead of conforming to the macho culture and hide it as sign of weakness. Unsurprisingly but sadly, this program has not been very sucessful: similar to outing yourself as gay is the ultimate career -killer in soccer, any mention of not feeling in top-form kills your career.
How much of that is due to the common (factually wrong) perception, esp. among older people, that a person who once had a mental problem will always be “crazy” and shouldn’t be trusted, and how much the fans perceive soccer as macho where there’s no place for weaknesses or doubts is unclear.
It did remind me however of another type of career: Hollywood actors, who also are under a lot of strain to perform top all the time because a lot of money depends on them (And the performance can only partly be done with practise, some creative element and personal mood plays a role, too). In several biographies of famous stars, actors mention the feeling of self-doubt and self-esteem problems because of this pressure - 20 or 100 people on the set looking at them, expecting wonders of them. Several started to take drugs to cope with this pressure or to make them more awake (Robin Williams with amptheamtines for example).
On the one hand, as layperson I expect people with a lot of real* self-esteem and drive to go into pro sports or pro acting.
- Real self-esteem as the kind you develop as child naturally by solving appropriate tasks: finishing a math puzzle, climbing two hours to the top of the mountain, winning a soccer competition. Overblown self-esteem, where the goals are set too low and feel fake is not what I mean.
On the other hand, people with low self-esteem (because their parents set unreachable goals) mostly start denying effort: if they see that they keep failing continuously, why should they bother? But some others start to try to run away from the self-doubts by pushing themselves harder. It’s as if they have a distorted perception: while everybody else congratulates them on a job well done, they feel inadequate. (Some normal people might experience this in real-life job world with clueless managers).
Or is this already a sign of depression, to have such a distorted perception?
So my first question is:
- is the rate of depression and / or self-esteem problems** among pro sportspeople and pro actors
a) lower
b) the same
c) higher
than the average population? (And bonus points: how high is that? Sometimes 10% is mentioned, sometimes 30%, sometimes depression is even given as Nr. 1 reason of death aside from physical diseases like cancer or heart attack in First World countries).
** are those two seperate problems in psychology today, or part of the same?
I realize that even in the US, not all people out themselves as needing a shrink - and many people visit a shrink because he’s currently in fashion, not because they are really ill and need therapy.
I also realize that seperating those stars with alcohol or drug abuse problems because they took cocaine at a party from those who have an addictive personality, but no depression, from those who self-medicate to cope with their depression/ self-esteem problems is not easy. An estimate though would be interesting.
I also realize that not all stars have written autobiographies, or are truthful in them.
Second question:
- Has the rate of pro people (see above) changed over the last 2/3/5/7 decades or not?
Again, I realize how difficult it will be to get hard numbers on this - on the one hand, there are indivdiual cases of depressed and alcoholic stars back in the silent b/w movie days. And casual drinking was much more accepted, and stars were more sheltered from the press (or maybe they weren’t, we’ve just not seen enough slime papers from that period?)
Still, some guesses?
- If the rate has gone up over the past decades, is the sharply increased pressure in both Hollywood and pro sports to blame for this? Or is it a case of people being more open about what was hidden before (E.g. child abuse and wife beatings happened in the 50s probably more than in the 90s, but it was behind closed doors, so numbers were lower).
I mean, a Hollywood picture today cost millions to make. In the 50s or 70s it was cheaper. Or was it always expensive relative to its day? Was the pressure more intense when TV and cinema were the only entertainment compared to today where they are one form of many?
With sports, I believe the pressure has definitly sharpened - in the 50s, players on the National team were half amateurs. Today, they are traded for millions and clubs make millions from TV rights.
All thoughts and comments and explanations about these things, esp. to enlighten us laypeople away from common misconceptions about these problems, are welcome, and thank you in advance! 