Flourishing and Languishing in Sport - Dr Kurtis Pankow (Pt1) - Meaningful Sport Series

 There have been many stories in the media about athletes’ struggles during and after their careers, and sport psychology scholars have dedicated extensive efforts to understand athlete mental health in the past few years. Yet, rather than only focusing on mental ill-health, Dr Kurtis Pankow has argued that we also need to focus on understanding what contributes to well-being in sport. And this is what he has done in his PhD work.

Specifically, keeping in mind the topic of this podcast, we connect the question of what constitutes well-being with existential psychology and meaningfulness.

Dr Kurtis Pankow recently defended his PhD dissertation titled “Exploring Flourishing in Canadian University Sport” at the University of Alberta, and now works as a postdoctoral researcher at Queens University on a project focused on student mental health. In this podcast, we hear about the findings of his PhD work as well as reflection on where we are and where we might be going in terms of understanding mental health and well-being in sport.