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Mahoney and Avener's (1977) categorization of imagery into “internal” (first-person visual and kinesthetic) and “external” (third-person visual) perspectives suggested a viable means to quantifiably test Jacobson's (1931) finding that “visualizing” a biceps “curl” produced only ocular responses while “muscularly imagining” the same movement just generated localized biceps activity. A significant within-subjects main effect (p < .001) revealed that the internal imagery condition produced more integrated biceps activity than the external imagery condition as predicted by Lang's (1979) bio-informational theory of emotional imagery.

This study attempted to manipulate an athlete’s facilitative or debilitative appraisal (direction; Jones, 1995) of competitive anxiety through imagery-based interventions in order to study the effects on subsequent anxiety intensity (heart rate and CSAI-2) and direction (CSAI-2D; Jones & Swain, 1992). In a within-subjects’ design, 24 experienced soccer players were relaxed via progressive relaxation audiotape and then randomly underwent an imagery-based video- and audiotaped manipulation of their appraisal of taking a hypothetical gamewinning penalty kick under either a “pressure” or “challenge” appraisal emphasis. There was no significant effect for heart rate. A repeated measures MANOVA for CSAI-2 and CSAI-2D scores revealed that for both intensity and direction scores the challenge condition produced less cognitive anxiety, less somatic anxiety, and more self-confidence (all p < .001) than the pressure situation. This finding suggests that a challenge appraisal manipulation taught by applied sport psychologists might benefit athletes’ performance.

In this article Life Development Intervention (LDI) is described. It is an intervention based on a developmental-educational framework that fits the needs of practitioners from varied backgrounds and disciplines and opens the path to better communication among these practitioners. LDI can be used to enhance athletes’ performance both inside and outside sports. The assumptions underlying LDI are presented, the role of the LDI specialist is examined, and a framework for selecting intervention strategies is outlined. Particular attention is given to the importance of learning how to teach the transfer skills from one domain to another.