About
The story.
Elena Sopp
Education
BSc Psychology First-class Honours
MSc Sport & Exercise Psychology Distinction
Professional Doctorate Sport & Exercise Psychology Current – University of Portsmouth
Experience
Grief & Bereavement Psychology
Occupational Psychology
Sport & Performance Psychology
Current Research
Athlete experiences of trauma and understanding the potential for trauma-informed environments.
Practitioners’ experiences of working in an extreme sports environment.
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My journey
Ten years ago I started training as a psychologist. Psychology is a broad discipline, and I built my depth deliberately – a first-class with honours BSc degree in Psychology, a distinction at Masters level in Sport and Exercise Psychology, and years of practice across grief and bereavement, occupational psychology, and elite sport, before turning that training specifically toward motorsport.
That specificity matters to me. Motorsport asks something different of the mind than most sports do – split-second decisions under real physical risk, identity built around machines as much as bodies, a paddock culture with its own unwritten rules. I didn’t want to bring a generic sport-psychology toolkit and hope it translated. I wanted the training itself to fit the sport, which is part of why I’m now completing a professional doctorate at the University of Portsmouth. It’s also personal this isn’t a world I’ve studied from a distance – it’s one I’ve lived alongside.
My philosophy & approach
No single framework fits everyone – which is as true of the theory I use as it is of the people I work with. A motorbike rider, a rally co-driver, and a single-seater driver aren’t managing the same psychological terrain, so I draw on multiple perspectives rather than one model.
Together, we might explore the beliefs that shape your inner world, how emotion moves through you under pressure, how your environment shapes your thinking, and how to bring all of it into alignment with what performance demands.
This is shaped by continued academic study and by research I’ve carried out into this sport specifically – including work on risk and identity in motorsport, and why competitors choose to race at events like the Isle of Man TT. In a field where anyone can call themselves an expert, it feels fair that you know what mine is built on.
Ready to begin?
Find out how you can use performance psychology to your competitive advantage.
