I see the Bulls have appointed Allan Johnston as possibly world rugby league's first official club psychiatrist. When I saw the headline, I assumed it was to examine the heads of the loyal fans, but apparently not, the club says his responsibilities will be split between players' personal welfare and performance.

Didnt Leeds have one the year we beat them at Murrayfield, however he had the opposite effect, made the team think they were all supermen and could do anything, clearly a collective fantasy at odds with reality.

Are you sure he's a psychiatrist not a psychologist?
The former deal with mental illnesses, the latter with behavioural issues.

A psychologist also deals with mental illness, following diagnosis by a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist can diagnose, recommend and prescribe medication, a psychologist would advise and administer therapy - such as cbt, talking therapy, psychology etc...

Maybe the guy does both?

You been a coma for 10 years or something?


You're not going to like what's been going on whilst you've been "away"

Well, he [iworks[/i as one, being a consultant psychiatrist at Derbyshire Health Care and NHS Foundation Trust, and associate psychiatrist to the State of Mind charity. But I do admit that I have not personally checked his certificates, so he could I suppose be making it up.



The chief distinction is that a psychiatrist is a fully qualified medical doctor, who's chosen to specialise in psychiatry. A psychologist isn't. I don't think your distinction is valid. For example, many psychologists deal with treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Which is a very common mental illness. Also of course, being a doctor, a psychiatrist can prescribe medicines as part of the treatment, but a psychologist can't. But your comment raises an interesting distinction, which I reckon most people don't understand.

I think your reference is probably to clinical psychologists, but psychologists come in many other different flavours, for example a marketing psychologist, who might advise Morrisons on how to increase sales through trixy marketing strategies. Or a forensic psychologist, or an educational psychologist. Or, of course, a sports psychologist.

Anyhoo, the good doctor defines his own role at the Bulls as

I don't think he'll be treating much mental illness.

Bulls use the psychologist Dr. John Maruanka, who also works for City.

TBH, I think have a club psychiatrist is a positive step forward and one that should be emulated by other clubs, not just in SL but in the whole of RL. In fact, I'd go a step further and say it is the RFL's DUTY to provide someone to fill this role within all clubs under its remit.

An RL player's career is a short one when compared against other career paths and there's not as much scope beyond playing days for a lot of these guys, combine that with the risk of serious head injury that all RL players face every time they make or are on the receiving end of a tackle. That carries the risk of serious mental health issues.

Then there's also the case of poor Terry Newton. If there'd been mental healthcare professionals in the sport at that time, perhaps he'd still be with us.

It is carefully qualified with the words "the year".

I asked for clarification out of interest as Mrs Bartonflyer is a retired consultant forensic psychiatrist who spent her career dealing with severely mentally ill patients who had committed serious crimes.
Many sporting organisations have used psychologists but I wasn't aware of any emploing a psychiatrist, an interesting move for Bradford which will be fascinating to follow to see what the impact is.

Well, one impact is on his paypacket, as he says he has agreed some sort of "performance related pay" deal, where he gets paid more the better we do in the league! Does this shrink the odds of not making the playoffs?

and will he do tricks on his cycle at half time for us when we do get to the playoff?

IIRC, he wasn't a psychologist, despite claiming he was, he studied sports science and that seemed to be enough as far as he was concerned.

It seems a very sensible to have a psychiatrist available to check on mental health issues. Hopefully he'll still keep in touch with ex players after they've retired.

Not so sure about the performance related role. I remember reading about ex England football goalkeeper, David James. He once had a nightmare for England in a game against Denmark. He was slaughtered by the press afterwards, partly because he was so bad, but mainly because he admitted that he hadn't prepared as well as usual.

He later explained what he meant by that comment. In the days leading up to the game he had done everything that he would normally do on the training pitch. On the day of the game he prepared exactly as normal. The only thing that was different was on the evening, the day before the game. He'd been led to believe that he wouldn't be playing in the game so didn't spend the 2 hours sat on his hotel bed mentally preparing for the game. Didn't carry out his "visualisation" exercises where he imagined making saves, catching crosses etc. On the morning of the game he was told that he would be playing. He said his reaction was "Oh sh*t, I'm fu*ked" , which turned out to be a self fulfilling prophecy. It did seem ironic that mental exercises designed to improve confidence had become a crutch on which he had become dependent.

Ex England cricketer Matthew Hoggard also said that he liked doing the visualisation stuff. Although he admitted "its a lot less tiring than bowling in the nets".

The game is awash with those little mental 'crutches' though. From the bloke who gets changed ages before the rest [and always puts on his socks before his shorts, left one first.... to the guy who insists on being next to the last out of the tunnel without a ball in his hands.

Even worse, I know fans who are just as bad....

A mate of mine was on the medical staff of a professional sports club. When they had a big game the manager would ask him to "sneak" into the dressing room an oxygen cylinder and masks. The players would all take gulps of oxygen before leaving the dressing room, all proclaiming the massive effect it was having.

Of course it was completely useless as a performance enhancing measure. Any beneficial effect would have disappeared by the time they reached the pitch. But the players swore by it. I think they stopped doing it when the players started demanding it every match.

Worryingly none of the players ever asked whether it was legal. It was, because it was completely useless, but they didn't know that.