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About me

I studied sport science at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz, where it quickly became clear that sports psychology was the subject that interested me most. I was involved in competitive sports myself at the time and found it exciting to learn more about the  relationship between different thoughts and athletic performance, which is why this topic became the subject of my dissertation. I specialized primarily in one phenomenon: rumination (repetitive, intrusive, mainly negative thoughts). 

While my doctoral thesis mainly examined correlative relationships, my focus in the first phase of my post-doc period was on the experimental investigation of this association. In addition to developing my own experimental paradigm for inducing ruminative thoughts, I conducted numerous laboratory and field studies and developed my own questionnaires together with my colleagues. Through my work at CIMH, I now have the opportunity to expand my previous research to include the aspect of mental health. Therefore, I am currently examining how (sport-specific) rumination is related to the mental health of competitive athletes.

Alena has a diploma in Sport Science and a PhD in Psychology. In addition she was certified as Mental Performance Consultant (asp Curriculum) and Mental Health First Aider (MHFA). In addition to her own activities in competitive swimming and lifesaving, she also worked for many years as a coach in the field of competitive youth sports.

Expertise

Sport psychology | Dysfunctional thoughts | Rumination | Questionnaire development | Experimental settings