Warrick Wood Ph.D.

Warrick Wood is a lecturer of sport psychology in the School of Sport, Exercise & Nutrition at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, and an accredited mental skills trainer (HPSNZ; SESNZ). Warrick has a strong coaching background, coaching basketball at a range of levels in New Zealand and having served as an assistant coach on a women’s college basketball team in Indiana. He has also worked for several regional and national sporting organizations in areas of high-performance and coach development. Throughout his time coaching and working in high-performance sport, Wood developed an interest in the psychological aspects to performance, particularly at the competitive/elite level. His doctoral research examined athletes’ perceptions of coaching behaviours which are conducive, as well as undermining, to basic psychological needs satisfaction. Wood is currently working with various elite athletes and teams in New Zealand to enhance performance through mental skills training. Wood’s primary areas of interest are the development of team culture and assisting athletes in developing a mindset that will enable them to perform optimally under pressure.