Every athlete, every coach and every team moves within a story. Pressure does not arise solely from the situation – but from the meaning we assign to it.
Pressure is not only the situation. It’s the meaning you give it.
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Coaching
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Since establishing itself in recent years as an inspiring platform for practice-oriented sports psychology education and interdisciplinary exchange, the Tiroler Tag der Sportpsychologie 2026 will focus on a modern understanding of pressure, performance, and mental self-leadership in elite sports.
At the center of the event is the question of how athletes, coaches, and teams subjectively experience, interpret, and cope with pressure situations. Current approaches in sports psychology increasingly show that stress does not arise solely from the objective situation itself, but primarily from the meaning people assign to a situation — shaped by experiences, relationships, expectations, cultural influences, and personal stories.
Athletes, teams, coaches, and sports psychology experts never perform solely within the objective reality of competition, but always within their individual world of perception, meaning, and experience. It is precisely there that mental strength, self-leadership, decision-making ability, and effective action under pressure emerge — but also uncertainty, mental blocks, or “choking under pressure.”
For this reason, the Tiroler Tag der Sportpsychologie 2026 will focus intensively on the question of how sports psychologists, coaches, and leaders can professionally support athletes and teams in complex high-pressure situations.
Christopher Willis once again succeeded in bringing together renowned national and international experts from elite sports, coaching, and sports psychology for 2026. In the inspiring atmosphere of Grillhof in Vill (Innsbruck), the speakers will provide practical insights into
o how mental performance develops under pressure,
o how experiences and meanings influence behavior,
o how teams develop psychological safety,
o how self-leadership processes can be strengthened,
o and how athletes learn to remain capable of acting even under high levels of activation.
Special attention will be given to the dynamics of competitive pressure, performance evaluation, team culture, leadership behavior, error management, and crisis intervention, as well as the question of how mental strength can be sustainably developed in elite sports. The keynote presentations by international experts will once again open perspectives far beyond the traditional framework of sports psychology and connect experiences from elite sports, leadership, high-performance environments, and extreme situations with current scientific insights.
All contributions create a practical bridge across different sports, role profiles, and performance contexts — from individual self-regulation to team dynamics and leadership processes under pressure. The goal is to provide concrete impulses for daily work in sports psychology support, coaching, and the development of high-performance cultures that foster excellence.
As always, the Tiroler Tag der Sportpsychologie 2026 is aimed at sports psychologists, coaches, leaders in elite sports, support staff, sports scientists, and interested colleagues from related professional fields who wish to reflect on and further develop their competencies in dealing with pressure, mental performance, self-leadership, and psychological support in high-performance sports.
09.00 – 09.20
“Introduction to the Tiroler Tag der Sportpsychologie 2026 with the Presentation of the BÖP 2026 Young Talent Awards in Sports Psychology”
Speaker: Christopher Willis + Young Talent Award Winners 2026
09.20 – 10.30
Keynote 1 (in English!):
“Coaching and Self-Leadership in High-Pressure Situations”
Speaker: Gordon Herbert, “Coach of the Year 2023” in Germany, led the German national basketball team to the bronze medal at the 2022 European Championship and to the historic World Championship title in Manila in 2023. The Canadian holds a degree in sports psychology and brings decades of experience as both a player and coach. He is regarded as an expert in leadership, team development, and self-leadership under high performance pressure.
10.30 – 11.00
Break and Transition to the Seminar Rooms
11.00 – 12.15
Workshop 1:
“High Performance in the Leadership Team: Designing Effective Collaboration”
Practical approaches on how sports psychology experts can purposefully support and further develop collaboration within leadership teams in elite sports. The aim is to increase one’s own sense of agency in working with leadership groups and to take concrete tools into practice in order to sustainably support performance systems.
Speaker: Frauke Wilhelm is a sports psychologist for the German Football Association (DFB) U20 national team, the professional squad of FC St. Pauli, and the Olympic Training Center Lower Saxony. She is a qualified psychologist with additional training in systemic coaching, process- and embodiment-focused psychology. Her core expertise in sports psychology includes team support (mainly football) and strengths-oriented coaching of athletes and coaches.
Workshop 2:
“Comeback Stronger! Modern Hypnotherapy & Sports Hypnosis in the Aftercare of Falls and Injuries”
Speaker: Dunja Lang (Dipl. Social Pedagogue FH, MBA) is a sports psychology expert (ASP), mental and performance coach for elite athletes, coaches, and executives.
She is a former professional athlete and equestrian (show jumping) coach. The topic of “comebacks” and processing falls, injuries, and pain is also a personal concern based on her own experience. She primarily works with equestrian athletes, martial artists, and alpine skiing and biathlon athletes, including those in Olympic squads.
She holds several multi-year certified coaching and therapeutic qualifications in systemic counseling and therapy, hypnosystemic coaching and organizational consulting (DBVC, Dr. Gunther Schmidt M.E.G.), hypnotherapy/clinical hypnosis (M.E.G.), EMDR, PEP / tapping techniques / embodiment-oriented approaches (Dr. Michael Bohne), and is a certified systemic supervisor (DGSF) and licensed alternative practitioner for psychotherapy.
She published her book “Mental Grand Prix” featuring a specialized hypnotherapeutic approach and is regularly a speaker at conferences such as “Mental Strength,” ASP Conference, “Parts Conference,” and the M.E.G. Congress (Milton Erickson Society).
Workshop 3:
“Gender Confidence Gap and Female Empowerment in Elite Sports”
The workshop explores how gender-specific socialization and societal expectations shape the mental experience and performance development of female athletes. It focuses on typical psychological dynamics such as self-doubt, perfectionism, limited self-efficacy, and dealing with uncertainty or pressure. Based on current research and practical impulses, intervention approaches will be presented to specifically support female athletes in developing self-efficacy, decisiveness, and mental resilience, and to accompany them on their path toward greater confidence and empowerment in elite sports.
Speaker: Julia Buchner is a sports psychologist based in Salzburg and has been working with elite athletes and professional performing artists since 2011. Her focus is on competition and performance preparation, individual and team support, and “Coach the Coach” work.
As a sports psychologist, she has worked with, among others, the Austrian national pistol shooting team (ÖSB) and the U17 women’s national football team (ÖFB, over 45 international matches), and currently supports the ÖFB Women’s Academy, the women’s fistball team (ÖFBB), and elite orienteering athletes (ÖFOL).
Since 2024, a further focus of her work has been Female Empowerment—particularly topics such as setting boundaries, self-confidence, and self-advocacy.
Workshop 4:
The Stressed Self within the We – How Teams, Relationships, and Leadership Stay Stable in Elite Sports
In this workshop, the insights from the lecture are transferred into participants’ own daily practice. The focus is on the question: What do I need under pressure—and what does the team need? Participants develop a clearer understanding of their behavior in stress situations and concrete approaches for greater stability in both the “I” and the “We.”
Speaker: Ulf Häfelinger is a coach, trainer, and sports psychology expert with many years of experience in elite and professional sports. He combines approaches from positive psychology and logotherapy with practical sports psychology work. For over a decade, he supported players and teams in professional football and worked, among others, for FC Red Bull Salzburg. Today, he works as a trainer in logotherapy, positive psychology, coaching, and communication, supporting leaders, coaches, and athletes in effectively developing mental strength, self-leadership, and personal growth under pressure.
12.15–13.30
Mittagessen
13.30 – 15.00
Keynote 2:
The Stressed Self within the We – How Teams, Relationships, and Leadership Remain Stable in Elite Sports
The lecture explores key psychological mechanisms of performance and collaboration under pressure in sport. It shows how individual stress responses influence team dynamics and what conditions are necessary for stable cohesion. At the same time, the topic is viewed from the perspective of Viktor Frankl’s concept of the human being, which understands humans as free and responsible even under difficult conditions. The aim is to keep teams both high-performing and connected in critical situations.
Speaker: Ulf Häfelinger is a coach, trainer, and sports psychology expert with many years of experience in elite and professional sports. He combines approaches from positive psychology and logotherapy with practical sports psychology work. For over a decade, he supported players and teams in professional football and worked, among others, for FC Red Bull Salzburg. Today, he works as a trainer in logotherapy, positive psychology, coaching, and communication, supporting leaders, coaches, and athletes in effectively developing mental strength, self-leadership, and personal development even under pressure.
