'Leaving the Door Open’: Using Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) with Sport Climbers Who Experience Fear

Climbing as a competitive sport was introduced to the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020 and following the success of the event was included in the games in Paris 2024. Being new to the Olympian stage little research has investigated how the principles of sport psychology can facilitate climbing performance. The current study aimed to explore climber’s experiences of fear and how it influences performance. Five sport climbers participated in a series of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) workshops. Three of the participants were interviewed and following an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of the data three superordinate themes were reported: making sense of fear in climbing, making sense of change, and doing it. The findings suggest that fear was not helpful for performance and was related to pressure to perform not danger to physical safety. A tentative finding was that REBT gave the climbers space and freedom from these expectations allowing exploration and enjoyment. Practical recommendations are discussed, including the use of REBT in addressing irrational beliefs that impact sport climbers’ performance, especially in terms of expectations and awfulizing (Turner, 2023). More research is now needed to validate REBT as an intervention with climbers to reduce unhelpful fear and enhance performance.