Commentary: the experience of depression during careers of elite male athletes

A commentary on The Experience of Depression during Careers of Elite Male Athletes by Doherty, S., Hannigan, B., and Campbell, M. J. (2016). Front. Psychol. 7:1069. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01069 As I am writing this commentary on "The Experience of Depression during Careers of Elite Male Athletes" by Doherty et al. (2016) concurrently with the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the topicality of the paper is felicitous. A number of prominent Olympians, both male and female, have openly come out in the popular media and discussed their personal battles with depression, including English Gardener (USA; track & field), Jack Green (UK; track & field), Michael Phelps (USA; swimming), and Allison Schmitt (USA; swimming) to name a few (Frank, 2016; Murphy, 2016; Powers, 2016; Schnell, 2016). These personal accounts highlight the importance of recognizing that elite athletes, who, like the population at large, are not immune to mental health problems (Rice et al., 2016). The article by Doherty et al. (2016) is the first of its kind to truly delve into retrospective experiences of athletes who had experienced depression during their sporting careers. By adopting a qualitative research design, and using both descriptive and interpretative analysis (Elliot and Timulak, 2005), the authors have cleverly chosen a methodology that enables the exploration of a phenomenon from the participant perspective. This allowed the emergence of data in relation to the nature and defining features of depression in male elite athletes, as well as detailed exploration of "how the culture of sport and the interplay between the athletes' sense of self and the elite performance environment influenced how they experience, expressed, and responded to depression during their careers" (Doherty et al., 2016). As such, the authors were able to explore an under researched area in greater depth, and to provide commendable and meaningful insights into the phenomenon. One of the key findings worthy of further attention is the role of identity in depression. Athletic identity, which according to Horton and Mack (2000) is considered to be both a cognitive structure (e.g., "I am athletic") and a social role (e.g., "I am a swimmer") and is typically associated with positive impressions of oneself. However, the current study suggested that athletic identity can influence the emergence, manifestation, development, and the adaptive and maladaptive processes of recovery from depression. More specifically, Doherty et al. (2016) found that having a strong athletic identity and performance pressures made athletes more vulnerable for depression, and enabled the masking of depressive symptoms. Identity also influenced the process of recovery, as it was partially characterized by shifts in identity toward more multidimensional sense of self. When placed in the wider social context of sport, it is easy to see how athletic identity development among elite male athletes can predispose an individual to depression. Internal and external expectations of personal characteristics such as masculinity, mental toughness, and grit are likely to contribute the development of a more unidimensional identity (Young and White, 2000; Jones et al., 2002; Duckworth et al., 2007). One does not have to look far to see how the above characteristics are differently constructed for male and female athletes (e.g., Rogers, 2016). Male athletes are often referred in the popular and social media as strong, powerful, and fast. In contrast, female athlete media coverage includes explicit references to other social identities they possess: wife, fiancee, mother, grandmother, and both of the above portrayals have also sparked a lot of social media interest and controversy. Language: en