Synapse Sports Psychology
Synapse Sports Psychology

Performance in focus.
Athletes in full.

Synapse Sports Psychology is a research-informed sport psychology practice supporting athletes, teams, coaches, and parents. We work at the intersection of mental skills, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, trauma-informed theory, and neuroaffirming practice, with a distinctive focus on neurodivergent athletes.

Schedule a consultation Explore our neurodiversity work
40+
Years combined practice & coaching
300+
Athletes · teams parents
9
Core services offered
Athletes in mental preparation
Mental Performance

Strong minds. Supported systems.
Whole athletes.

Evidence-based mental skills for athletes at every level, with a distinctive focus on neurodivergent athletes.

Services

Mental skills,
applied with care.

We design engagements around the athlete in front of us, the moment they're in, the system they belong to, and the people supporting them. Every service is grounded in developmental psychology, clinical practice, and applied performance research.

01

Performance mindset

Building focus, confidence, and decision-making under load, adapted to the demands of the sport and the athlete's stage of development.

02

Mental skills training

Goal-setting, attention control, imagery, self-talk, and pre-performance routines, taught as repeatable, evidence-based skills.

03

Pressure & anxiety regulation

Tools for arousal control, breathing, and recovery, so athletes can meet pressure without being defined by it.

04

Parent consultation

Supporting parents of competitive athletes, communication, autonomy, identity, and the developmental long view.

05

Coach & team culture

Helping staffs build environments that produce trust, accountability, and durable performance across a season.

06

Transition support

Navigating the high-school-to-college move, the move to professional sport, deselection, and life after sport.

07

Injury & return-to-play

Psychological readiness during rehabilitation, confidence rebuilding, and identity work for sidelined athletes.

08

Integrated developmental support

Whole-person consulting that connects athletic, academic, family, and identity development, particularly in adolescence and emerging adulthood.

09

Workshops & trainings

Custom sessions for clubs, teams, coaching staffs, and parent communities, including our flagship neurodiversity-in-sport programming.

Our distinctive focus

Neurodiversity in sport,
taken seriously.

ADHD, autism, learning differences, and other forms of neurodivergence shape how athletes attend, regulate, and recover, with real strengths and real support needs. We help athletes, families, and the systems around them work with those differences rather than around them.

Our approach is disability-affirming and strengths-based. We don't pathologize difference; we read it as information and translate it into practice. That means language coaches can use, structures families can hold, and skills athletes can call on in real moments.

We also design for healing-centered spaces. That means attending to nervous system safety, relational trust, trauma history, and the cultural conditions that shape whether athletes can access performance skills under pressure.

Explore neurodiversity workshops

Strengths-based assessment

Identify the cognitive and attentional patterns that already support performance, then build training around them.

Regulation skills that travel

Practical tools for sensory load, transitions, and competition arousal, usable in training, on game day, and at home.

Family & coach translation

Shared language for parents and staffs so the athlete isn't asked to be their own interpreter across environments.

Programs & systems consulting

Help clubs, academies, and athletic departments design intake, communication, and support pathways that include neurodivergent athletes by default.

Guiding principles

The way we work.

Synapse Sports Psychology is built for athletes as whole people. Our work integrates cognitive psychology, neuroscience, developmental science, family systems, trauma-informed theory, and neuroaffirming practice.

01

Strengths before strategies

We start by identifying what already works in the athlete's attention, sensory profile, motivation, and relationships before designing tools for pressure.

02

Development matters

Elite sport is not separate from adolescence, identity, school, family, injury, or transition. Durable performance has to fit the athlete's developmental season.

03

Families are part of the system

Parents can reduce pressure or unintentionally intensify it. We help families build communication patterns that protect autonomy, recovery, and belonging.

04

Neurodiversity is not an afterthought

Neurodivergent athletes deserve sport environments designed for varied processing, sensory needs, learning styles, and communication rhythms.

05

Pressure requires regulation

Confidence is easier to access when athletes understand arousal, recovery, sensory load, self-talk, and routines they can actually use in competition.

06

Healing-centered spaces change performance

We value scholarship, but the work has to become relationships, routines, and environments where athletes experience safety, agency, and belonging.

Team

Three perspectives.
One framework.

Synapse Sports Psychology brings together developmental research, four decades of clinical and coaching practice, and a clinician trained to work with athletes who are also navigating disability and identity.

HH
Principal · Research Lead

Holly A. Haynes, Ed.D.

Developmental psychologist & researcher

Holly serves as Executive Director of the Pillar Research Institute at The Jacob's Ladder Group, where she designs and conducts outcome-based research on the Interpersonal Whole-Brain Model of Care. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University, with dissertation research focused on psychological resilience and self-perception among marginalized populations. Her work in trauma intervention, youth development, family systems, collegiate teams, MLS soccer academies, and parents of elite athletes informs Synapse Sports Psychology's research and parent-consultation practice.

RF
Senior Consultant · Author

Richard "Rick" Fowler, EdD, LPC

Counselor, former collegiate coach, author

Rick is an author and co-author of 17 books and serves Truett McConnell University as the lead master's-level professor of Psychology and Professional Counseling, specializing in sport psychology. He also serves on the Athletic Administration team as Psychological Wellness Coordinator for all university sport teams. His experience includes head basketball coaching roles at two universities, consulting with NFL and MLB players, media appearances, and co-leading Synapse Sports Psychology's neurodiversity-in-athletes workshops with Holly.

JH
Clinical Associate

Judah Haynes

Counselor-in-training · Credentialed disability provider

A former collegiate soccer player at the University of Chicago, Judah is pursuing a master's in clinical mental health counseling at Northwestern and counseling licensure. She is a credentialed provider to individuals with disabilities and supports Synapse Sports Psychology's direct work with athletes navigating disability, identity, and transition.

Workshops & trainings

Bring Synapse Sports Psychology
to your team.

Half-day, full-day, and multi-session formats for clubs, academies, athletic departments, coaching staffs, and parent communities. Each workshop is adapted to your sport, age group, and competitive level.

Athletes · Half-day

Performance Mindset: Neurodivergent Strengths in Sport

A strengths-based workshop for neurodivergent athletes that connects cognitive and sensory profiles to practical performance tools.

  • —Identify sport-specific strengths such as hyperfocus, pattern recognition, and creative problem-solving.
  • —Build individualized pre-competition routines that accommodate sensory and executive functioning needs.
  • —Create personalized performance toolkits athletes can use before, during, and after competition.
4 hoursAdaptable by age group
Coaches · Full day

Coaching the Neurodivergent Athlete

Communication and support strategies for coaches, athletic directors, and support staff who want to build performance environments where neurodivergent athletes can thrive.

  • —Understand neurodivergent profiles in athletic contexts and adapt communication for varied processing needs.
  • —Create sensory-friendly training environments and inclusive team dynamics.
  • —Build feedback systems and overload-response plans for high-pressure competition moments.
6 hoursCoaches · ADs · Staff
Series · Athletes + support

The Integrated Athlete: Sensory Regulation for Peak Performance

A three-session series helping athletes and support people map sensory needs, design regulation strategies, and connect those strategies to technical performance.

  • —Session 1: map individual sensory profiles in sport contexts.
  • —Session 2: develop pre-competition, competition, and recovery strategies.
  • —Session 3: integrate sensory regulation with technical execution and competition routines.
3 × 2-hour sessionsAthletes · Support persons
Families · Half-day

Family Support System: Empowering Neurodivergent Athletes

A practical workshop for parents, siblings, and family supporters who want to understand the athlete's journey and reduce overwhelm while increasing autonomy and support.

  • —Support executive functioning across training, competition, travel, and recovery schedules.
  • —Use communication strategies that empower rather than overwhelm.
  • —Create home preparation routines and advocacy strategies within sport organizations.
3 hoursParents · Siblings · Supporters
Teams · Full day

Team Inclusion: Building Neurodiversity-Affirming Sport Cultures

A team-culture workshop for coaches, neurotypical teammates, athlete leaders, and organizational decision-makers who want inclusion to become part of the competitive system.

  • —Understand neurodiversity as a competitive advantage rather than a compliance requirement.
  • —Develop communication protocols and team rituals that work for diverse processing and sensory needs.
  • —Create peer support mechanisms, accommodation plans, and leadership pathways for neurodivergent athletes.
6 hoursTeams · Coaches · Leaders
Coaches · Series

The Coach in the System: Supporting the People Who Support Athletes

A coach-focused series for the adults who carry performance expectations, parent communication, team culture, athlete mental health concerns, and competitive pressure, often without enough support of their own.

  • —Build trauma-informed and neuroaffirming communication habits that reduce confusion, escalation, and shame.
  • —Learn how coach stress, identity, and pressure shape the emotional climate of a team.
  • —Create feedback systems, recovery rhythms, and referral pathways that protect both athlete development and coach well-being.
3 × 90-minute sessionsCoaches · Staff · Directors
Writing & Substack

Notes from practice.

Essays and field notes on athlete development, parenting in sport, and neurodiversity-affirming performance work.

Book

Counting the Cost: Raising & Coaching Elite Athletes

Holly and Rick are co-authors of this book on the physical and mental costs of athletic development, comparison traps, and the roles parents and coaches play in protecting athlete well-being.

Purchase on Amazon ↗
01
What "flow" actually requires of an athlete
Essay · 8 min read
↗02
Reading attention differently: ADHD on the field
Field note · 6 min read
↗03
When parents become the pressure
Essay · 10 min read
↗04
Return-to-play is an identity problem first
Essay · 7 min read
↗

Sample titles shown, full Substack feed coming soon.

Research

Practice grounded
in evidence.

Holly leads Synapse Sports Psychology's research agenda. Ongoing themes connect what we read in the literature to the questions coaches, parents, and athletes are actually asking on Tuesday afternoons.

Emerging model

Cultural Ceiling Syndrome

Holly and Rick are developing Cultural Ceiling Syndrome as a sport and organizational psychology model for understanding how programs can carry an identity-based performance thermostat. The model asks how a team or institution's inherited sense of "who we are" can shape expectations, anxiety at deviation, and regression toward familiar performance patterns.

LevelInstitutional and team
Core questionWhat kind of program are we?
FocusIdentity-based performance set points

Positioned alongside related constructs

  • Collective efficacy: Shared belief in the team's capabilities.
  • Team outcome confidence: Confidence in a specific result.
  • Team-level identification: Strength of shared team identity.
  • Organizational identity: Shared understanding of who the institution is.
  • Upper Limit Problem: An individual-level success thermostat.
  • Organizational imprinting: How early conditions persist in culture.

Working model shown for positioning purposes.

Theme 01

Neurodiversity-affirming practice in competitive youth sport

Mapping how attention, regulation, and identity show up in training environments, and what changes when programs adapt to them.

Theme 02

Family systems and the elite athlete

How parental expectations, sibling dynamics, and family identity shape development through adolescence and the college transition.

Theme 03

Pressure, regulation, and recovery across a competitive season

Working with coaching staffs to study what sustains performance without driving burnout, and what predicts athletes who keep showing up in March.

Theme 04

Athletic identity through injury and return-to-play

Following athletes through rehabilitation to understand the identity and confidence work that determines whether return is durable.

Theme 05

Academy development models

In collaboration with MLS academies and collegiate programs, what makes an effective long-term athlete development environment, beyond technical outcomes.

Theme 06

Coach communication & team culture

How staffs build language and structure that produce trust, candor, and durable competitive standards.

Get in touch

Schedule a
consultation.

Tell us a little about who you're working with — an athlete, a team, a coaching staff, a parent community — and we'll be in touch within two business days.

For teams & programs. Multi-session engagements, staff trainings, and parent workshops.
For individual athletes & families. Performance consulting, parent consultation, and integrated developmental support.
For media & speaking. Workshops, podcast guesting, and research collaborations.