About

Rick Aberman, Ph.D.Rick Aberman, Ph.D., has an innovative approach that draws a connection between how thoughts and emotions impact sports and business performance. For over three decades, Dr. Aberman has served as a trusted guide to some of the world’s most well-known individuals, athletes, and performers.

He helps individuals and teams develop the necessary psychosocial and leadership skills to sustain the highest levels of performance. As an industry leader, he has worked with athletes, coaches and teams at the collegiate and professional levels. He also works with other high performers such as business executives and senior leadership teams, families of wealth, as well as musicians, and journalists.

After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Aberman became one of the first psychologists in the country to be hired as a member of a sports medicine staff. He initiated a program designed to specifically meet the needs of high performing competitive student-athletes, coaches, and administrators at the University of Wisconsin. His work was featured in the book “From Red Ink to Roses”; written by Sports Illustrated senior writer Rick Telander.

For many years, Dr. Aberman has served as the Director of Peak Performance on the medical staff of the Minnesota Twins. In addition, he continues to be a long-standing advisor to athletic teams and coaches at the University of Minnesota. He utilizes the latest thinking in psychodynamics, motivation, neuroscience, and peak performance in a relatable user-friendly manner.

Dr. Aberman is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. His research-based contributions of integrating Emotional Intelligence with corporations and sports organizations stand as ‘the model’ of the field.

In the early 90’s he was hired by American Express to design a high performance program for leaders. Dr. Aberman became an architect of what was then the first comprehensive applied training program in emotional intelligence. The results of this highly studied and successful program led to huge increases in both revenue and retention. To this day the program serves as a gold standard model. Dr. Aberman continues to design and provide training in Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Development.

He also employs these concepts in the area of talent and organizational/team development, recruitment and assessment for sports and business organizations. He has been called upon to provide his expertise regarding talent selection for professional sports teams and their draft, assist college coaches with recruiting, as well as senior leadership positions in industry.

Through his early research and training as a family therapist with his mentor Carl Whitaker, MD, Dr. Aberman is recognized as an expert in the area of family business dynamics and consults regularly with family-run corporations. He has been a member of the Family Firm Institute since its inception and has served on its board of directors.

His book concerning the psychodynamics of coaching and effective leadership is called “Why Good Coaches Quit”: How to Deal with the Other Stuff. Dr. Aberman often appears on TV, Radio, and other national media platforms for his perspectives on how thoughts and emotions impact performance.

He was a founder in the leadership consulting firm the Lennick Aberman Group. Today he is a regular consultant to several professional sports teams. He also maintains a private practice in sports psychotherapy where he sees individual coaches and athletes from MLB, the NFL, NBA, and NHL. In addition, he works as an expert organizational systems consultant and executive/wellness coach.

Dr. Aberman resides in Minneapolis, MN.