(AGENPARL) – ven 02 dicembre 2022 By Marialuisa Roscino
Sport allows athletes to learn to manage their emotions, to know how to set themselves fundamental goals in order to achieve important goals, to train their minds to relax to improve their performance, and to respect an important system of team rules and sharing. For many people, sport represents a moment of psychophysical well-being and socialising.
Today in particular, we discuss with Dr Adelia Lucattini, Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society and the International Psychoanalytical Association, the theme of psychophysical wellbeing linked to a sport in particular, such as skiing.
Dr Lucattini, what benefits does skiing offer?
Skiing increases self-awareness and body awareness, proprioception, coordination, knowing how to move with equipment on. Learning a new technique, being able to make the descents, instils confidence and makes one proud of one’s achievements. It is also a way to get to know the mountains and places that can only be reached by skiing. Measuring oneself on the descents by mastering the technique better and better, instils confidence in one’s own means and the ability to tackle ‘obstacles’ step by step, progressively increasing the difficulty.
Psychologically, the different perspective from which one looks at things, the embracing of mountains and valleys with one’s gaze, transforms one’s mental perspective, broadens one’s outlook, gets one accustomed to diversity and complexity. New sensory experiences, the white colour of the snow, the woods, the wind, the winter sun, silence, the different sound of one’s own voice, the echo, the typical rustling of skis, are experiences that, starting with the senses, stratify and take root naturally in the unconscious, and expand the capacity to think. Being surrounded by beautiful landscapes, views of pristine peaks and tree-lined slopes teaches one to value and appreciate nature. In addition, mountain environments stimulate the imagination, improve observation skills and increase the feeling of tranquility.
What does skiing teach in particular?
Skiing teaches one to observe and learn from people in their natural element. This, in turn, makes one learn to observe oneself and make changes based on one’s own reflections. It also leads us to concentrate and look at where we are at that precise moment and do what is necessary in the ‘hic et nunc’ to reach the end point. At the end of the route, turning to look at the mountain makes one aware of the path, satisfied and proud of oneself.
Usually, skiing is associated with a holiday, a break from our everyday life, but it can be a way of thinking and a good habit to incorporate into one’s lifestyle. By skiing, one learns many things: the right equipment, which each discipline has its own (downhill, cross-country, snowboarding, Telemark, ski mountaineering, etc.); the value of ‘earning’ turns, descents and ascents; one’s own safety and that of others, through the rules to be respected, the use of helmets, priorities, etc.; respect for one’s partner’s level of skill, and the importance of skiing in a safe environment. ; respecting the level of one’s partner or friends, without forcing them or feeling “inferior”; everyone has their own mastery of the discipline, their own style, their own times and personal goals. Having mastered the technique, everyone skis where they want, as much as they like, where they can, without forcing themselves or having to prove anything to anyone. Skiing teaches solidarity, everyone skis alone but together with others. Safety is not an ‘optional extra’, the mountain has its rules, and they must be respected.
Why teach skiing to children?
Skiing is not only fun, but it is also great for little ones who are always looking for new things to learn and exciting ‘adventures’. Children are curious and naturally inclined towards activities other than their usual ones, as long as these are done together with their parents or adults they know, such as their teachers. If skiing is learnt at an early age, it combines the pleasure of this activity with a love of the mountains, learning a discipline through play with experience in a group, and movement in an environment beneficial to health.
Learning to ski as a child is the best time because the little ones quickly get hooked on the snow and learn the automatisms of the sport intuitively. There is a kind of ‘imprinting’ that remains in the unconscious physical, psychic and sensory memory for a lifetime.
Dr Lucattini, in addition to training the muscles and heart, can skiing reduce stress? And if so, how?
Certainly, and it is an excellent sport to keep children in good physical shape by improving general health and the cardiovascular system. It improves elasticity, strength and general well-being. Through the release of endorphins. In addition, being a sport practised at high altitude, it helps those children who have respiratory problems or allergies, encourages an increase in red blood cells that remains even when they return home. Not to be overlooked is the fact that the mountains are silent. An appropriate period of ‘detoxification’ from the noise pollution in which children are immersed in the city, in the classroom, in the gym, at home, is certainly very important. It is a privileged environment in which electronic devices cannot be used, or only for a brief time; therefore, it favours a rather painless separation from these through physical activity during the day, evening fatigue and the discovery of alternative games and activities. Very often in mountain resorts, evening activities are organised with singing, group games, acting, etc., from which children are literally ‘kidnapped’ and learn through play.
What role do you think schools can play to make them understand the importance of this sport, which in some cases is still undervalued?
There should be a return to the leading role of the school as a promoter of social education, as a cultural hub, and as a place of physical and psychological health for pupils and students. Already in the 1970s and 1980s, headmaster Giuseppe Foti had conducted at the ‘Pietro Vanni’ middle school in Viterbo a project of two weeks of skiing per year for the entire school. Students and teachers would move to a mountain resort, doing ski school in the mornings and curricular lessons in the afternoons. A totally self-subsidised initiative with a redistribution of the membership fee so that all pupils could participate in this educational and therapeutic experience in the mountains. It is a matter of recovering, where not already done, tried and tested experiences whose fruits, years later, are still tangible.
In this regard, the Senate is considering amending Article 33 of the Constitution and recognising the educational, social and psychophysical wellbeing-promoting value of sport, ‘an important training tool for social integration and the dissemination of positive universal values, a vehicle for inclusion, participation and social aggregation. Closely related then are sport and health, understood in its most modern conception as the integral psychophysical well-being of the person, even before being merely the absence of disease’.
Therefore, sport as a fundamental element to promote the health of all, young and old, physical, mental and social. According to the World Health Organisation’s definition, ‘bio-psycho-social well-being’.
In your essay in the book ‘Psychoanalysis at School’ you spoke about the role teacher training can play, what can you tell us about this?
Training with a psychoanalytic orientation broadens both the way one interprets one’s work and the way one observes children in the classroom. This type of approach, which is based on years of experience collaborating with teachers, has shown great benefits for teachers and students. As I like to say, ‘teachers can be therapeutic without being psychotherapeutic’. In addition, schools can also train in disciplines other than the curricular ones, in the arts and even in those sports considered to be the preserve of certain social circles. With good organisation and healthy solidarity, they can become sports for all. The knowledge of different environments and the opportunities to meet through sporting practice, streamline differences and promote a social rise of contacts and opportunities.
Not to be forgotten are the benefits of skiing for children with disabilities, accompanied by trained support teachers who can collaborate with ski instructors used to working with children with special needs.
What advice can you give to those who want to approach this sport for the first time, even as adults?
It is a way to exercise in the midst of nature surrounded by beautiful landscapes, wide open spaces, where the air quality and silence are incomparable: it is antidepressant;
The technical evolution of the equipment makes it easier to learn than it used to be, and the instructors are used to teaching adults who have never skied: it instils self-confidence;
It is not necessary to spend too much time on it; a week to start can be more than enough: it is also suitable for those with little time;
It brings one closer to oneself, relaxes, restores: it is anxiolytic;
With skis it is possible to reach places that otherwise would not be accessible: it instils courage;
After skiing, mountain resorts are full of public swimming pools and wellness centres, equipped with activities for children: it increases sociability;
At the end of the day after skiing lessons, there is also room for those who enjoy solitude, listening to music, relaxing with reading: it helps cultivate their hobbies;
Learning a new discipline challenges but also gives great satisfaction and makes you confident in your own possibilities. It makes you feel better and revitalises: it gives a new and pleasant vitality.