Βιογράφικο της Ψυχολόγου, Θάλειας Παναγή

Bio

My name is Thalia Panagi, and I was born in 1989 in Nicosia, where I grew up. My relationship with sports started at a very young age and continues until today.

At the age of 10, I started my involvement with sports. More specifically, I was a track and field athlete, I was running medium and long distances, where I had many achievements at the Pancyprian and Panhellenic levels.

Always, before the competitions, I had anxiety thus, it was difficult for me to manage my emotions (thoughts and feelings) thus, I didn’t have the performance I expected. This fact, of course, affected my self-confidence and made me realize the importance of psychology in sports.

Thus I decided to study Psychology to be able to help athletes, coaches, and parents around sports psychology.
I have obtained a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Cyprus, which included an exchange Erasmus program in Leuven, Belgium.

I have a Master’s degree in Sport Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University.
My thesis centered on Psychological skill usage, anxiety intensity direction, and self-confidence as a function of skill level in track and field athletes.

To elaborate my knowledge on psychology, I attained a 2-year master’s degree in Clinical-Counselling Psychology from La Salle University, USA, in collaboration with New York University in Prague. I worked as a counselor in the English International School of Prague which gave me the chance to meet children from different countries and cultures, examine different and several psychological disorders. Furthermore, I worked with athletes from various sports such as basketball, tennis, football, ski, and track and field. Most of them were elite athletes and they were representing the Czech Republic or their countries in several International or European Competitions. I was consulting them as a Sports psychologist and I obtained a lot of knowledge and experience as a counselor as well as a Sports Psychologist.

In addition, I worked as a Counsellor at the University of New York in Prague, where I was helping people who suffered from addiction, mood disorders, adjustment difficulties, personality and eating disorders, and problems with their interpersonal relationships and mostly with adolescents and adults. Also, I had the chance to provide my services as a Sports Psychologist in the University Basketball and Football teams and players, at the championship level. My main goal was to enhance their performance and deal with their difficulties, such as eliminating their anxiety and coping with pressure, and building self-confidence and concentration.

After I completed my studies I established in Cyprus, and I currently work with athletes from different sports. I give presentations and I do workshops on different topics related to Sport Psychology. I work with athletes, coaches, referees, and teams as groups. My main goal is to help them enhance their performance and to deal with their difficulties, such as eliminating their anxiety and coping with their pressure, building self-confidence and mental toughness, managing their expectations and perfectionism, helping them with their psychological wellbeing, dealing with their injury recovery, and helping them control their anger.

Furthermore, since 2015 I work at UCLan University in Cyprus as an Associate Lecturer in Sport Psychology teaching modules that include the topic of Doping in Sports. My primary research goals are directed towards psychological skills usage, concentration, anxiety, self-confidence, and injuries.
From September 2018, I started to cooperate with the football academies of APOEL and Omonoia, while from November 2018 until April 2018 I also collaborated with the first team of Omonoia.
In September 2019, I started my collaboration with the football Academies of AEK as well as with the Nautical Club of Nicosia, collaborations that I maintain to this day.
My main goal is to contribute in every possible way to the optimization of the quality of life of the people I work with, giving them the necessary supplies, which will help them achieve their goals.

In my free time, I do sports as I continue to run long distances (10km, half marathon). I also like to travel, but also write articles on psychology in various columns and newspapers.

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At this phase, I work with various professional teams, academies, coaches, athletes, and referees both in Cyprus and abroad, with the main goal and guide to maximizing athletic performance.
Today, I have collaborations with the Federation of Swimming, Archery, and Dynamic Triathlon. I also maintain collaboration with the Football academies of APOEL, AEK, and Omonoia.
Finally, during the summer of 2021, I had the privilege to be the Sport Psychologist of the Olympic Team that participated at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.