Abstract: By analyzing 99 articles published in the Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (JCSP) since its first issue, this paper is intended to explore the current research situations and problems regarding clinical sport psychology. Research results indicate that the field of study on clinical sport psychology is mainly concerned with performance dysfunction, performance impairment, mental health, and performance development, including such issues as sport performance, eating disorders, mood disorders, addiction, and pressure coping. Most of these studies are carried out from the perspective of cognitive behavior theory, among which 42.4% of the hypotheses need further verification and there still exist some methodological problems. As a result, the following suggestions are made for Chinese researchers expecting to pursue sport psychological studies: expanding the fields of study, paying more attention to localization researches, enriching theoretical foundations and strengthening trainings of research methodology.

Key words: clinical sport psychology, content analysis, performance development, performance dysfunction, performance impairment