This study aims to highlight how an existential-humanistic perspective can inform athlete support and in doing so, emphasise the importance of explicating the philosophical underpinnings of athlete lifestyle support. Drawing on applied experience with elite youth cricketers over a twelve-month period, ethnographic data was collected through the observation, maintenance of case notes and a practitioner reflective diary. Based on thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), we created three non-fictional vignettes that we use to illustrate how existential-humanistic theorising can inform lifestyle support. We discuss the implications of this professional philosophy in terms of considerations for performance and talent development programmes and how holistic support for athletes is positioned. We also discuss implications for athlete lifestyle and performance psychology practitioners, with regard to training, underpinning theoretical grounding of support and the strategic positioning of their practitioner roles
