Penguin Life will publish a “timely and important” book about mental health in sport by Gary Bloom titled Head in the Game.
Penguin Life acquired world English rights from Nick Walters at David Luxton Associates. Head in the Game will be published in hardback in spring 2021.
Bloom is the host of talkSPORT’s radio show “On the Sporting Couch”, where he talks to athletes about the difficulties they have had in their careers. He is a leading psychotherapist and one of the only psychotherarpists working within a football leage club. This is his first book.
The book will follow the journeys of 10 athletes in their therapy sessions with Bloom, from a rugby player arrested for a drunken brawl, through a homesick cricketer on tour, to a snooker player struggling with his feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Structured around the emotions people experience on a daily basis – shame, anger, fear, jealousy, love – chapter-by-chapter the inner traumas that impact their performance are revealed, explained and resolved.
Bloom said: “You might not be on fifty grand a week or hold a world record, but seeing how sportspeople overcome their demons is a powerful way of tackling your own, because happier players play better – in sport and in life.”
Editor at Penguin Life, Connor Brown, said: “Conversations around mental health in sport couldn’t be more timely – and around male mental health more generally too: suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK. Gary’s book is an important one, and we’re proud to be publishing it at Penguin Life.”