Dr. Monna Arvinen-Barrow, Associate Professor in the Laboratory for Sport Psychology & Performance Excellence has been busy writing invited book chapters over the past year. Internationally known for her expertise in psychological aspects of sport injury, her writing can now be found in four recent edited textbooks targeted for students, faculty, and clinical practitioners in athletic training and in sport, exercise, and performance psychology. We asked Dr. Arvinen-Barrow to elaborate on her experiences of each.
According to Dr. Arvinen-Barrow, it was an honor to be invited to update the chapter on the Psychosocial considerations for rehabilitation of the injured athletic patient. This chapter is part of the 7th edition of the long-standing athletic training text Rehabilitation Techniques for Sports Medicine and Athletic Training, published in 2020 by SLACK Incorporated and edited by Dr. William Prentice, a well-established scholar in the field of athletic training.
“When Dr. Prentice reached out to Dr. Megan Granquist (University of La Verne) and I a few years back, I was excited about the opportunity to match the chapter content with the 2020 Athletic Training Competencies. The book is a long-standing staple in the athletic training education, and as a comprehensive resource for all students and professionals surrounding the field of sports medicine, it reflects the most recent knowledge in the field.”
Dr. Arvinen-Barrow, along with colleague Dr. Damien Clement (West Virginia University) also contributed a chapter on Psychosocial strategies for the different phases of sport injury rehabilitation to the 4th edition of the Psychological Bases of Sport Injuries. Originally published in 1999 by Dr. David Pargman, this textbook had not been updated for 13 years, until 2020 when Swedish psychology of injury scholars Dr. Andreas Ivarsson and Dr. Urban Johnson revitalized the long-standing text. Dr. Arvinen-Barrow reflects on what this contribution meant to her:
“Contributing to the latest edition of a textbook that initially introduced me to the field of psychology of injury was humbling. When I started my academic journey, never in my wildest dreams did I think one day I would be contributing to what everyone in the field calls ‘The Pargman Book.'”
In addition to the above, Dr. Arvinen-Barrow and Dr. Clement were also invited to contribute chapters to two textbooks edited by scholars from the United Kingdom, Finland, and Spain.
The first, “This is the final Jump,” I respond. Why, why do I utter those words?” Using storytelling in sport injury rehabilitation was published in 2020 by Routledge as part of Sport Injury Psychology: Cultural, Relational, Methodological, and Applied Considerations, edited by Dr. Ross Wadey. Authored with Dr. Clement and Dr. Brian Hemmings (private practice, United Kingdom), Dr. Arvinen-Barrow recounts how this chapter pushed her outside of her comfort zone:
“When Dr. Wadey invited us to write this chapter, I initially hesitated. The goal of the book is to take a novel approach to psychology of injury, challenge the status quo, and open new, exciting lines of future research within the topic. To make the chapter work, our writing needed to reflect that, and forced us to get creative with our writing style and approach. We did our research, a lot of reading outside of sport injury, and really immersed ourselves in storytelling literature. I had recently read an autobiography of a Finnish freestyle skier, Pekka Hyysalo, who encountered a life-threatening injury. I was moved by his story and inspired how he told it. An excerpt of Pekka’s story became our starting point, and we built the chapter around it. To get us started, I translated Pekka’s text into English and gained his approval to use it in our chapter as an epigraph. I think the end result, while challenging, works well. I hope the readers like it too”.
The most recent chapter, Role of emotion in sport injury was published in 2021 by Routledge as part of Feelings in Sport: Theory, Research, and Practical Implications for Performance, edited by Dr. Montse C. Ruiz and Dr. Claudio Robazza. According to Dr. Arvinen-Barrow, this one was another fun one to write:
“The chapter in content mimics a chapter Dr. Clement and I were invited to write a few years back. The previous chapter was written in English (neither one of us speak French), but published only in French. When writing the new chapter for Drs. Ruiz and Robazza, we needed to be careful not to replicate the original material in a way that would be considered plagiarism, but also ensure the coherency in content across the two book chapters.”
When asked about what got her into writing book chapters, Dr. Arvinen-Barrow responded:
“Over the past couple of years, I have increasingly been invited to contribute to educational materials on the psychology of injury. I think this is partly due to me editing two core texts in the field, and partly due to empirical work I published. Writing books and book chapters is a fun challenge, as it stretches me as a writer. When I receive an invitation to contribute, I always start this process by thinking: Who is the target audience? What do they need to know about the topic? What do I have to add to this body of literature that has not already been said elsewhere? How do I write this in a way that it becomes easily accessible and an enticing read for the target audience, while being grounded in empirical evidence?”
While students are most often introduced to academic writing in the form of primary research, additional opportunities are available to qualified scholars. The experiences described by Dr. Arvinen-Barrow demonstrate the challenges offered by the authorship of scholarly book chapters and the meaning such contributions can provide those involved.