Strife for excellence and addiction to body movement: a risk model in high-level athletes.

Champion athletes strive to attain a personal goal defined by a socially co nstructed image of psychomotor performance to be accomplished at the moment of the championship celebration, This intrapsychic process is initiated by a transformation of the body, programmed and controlled by repeated traini ng. The athlete's body becomes accustomed to ritualized obsessive movements , favoring the feeling of self-fulfillment solely during muscular effort (c ontraction/relaxation, displacement). This social goal of excellence implie s personal adaptation involving an addictive link to movement: a mechanism uniquely valid in high level sports. Twelve years experience in psychologic al support of high-level athletes participating in Olympic sports has led t o an analysis of this adaptive mechanism and a proposed psychopathological model of its invasion of the athlete's psychic economy.