When Doug Smith felt a sharp pain in his left knee at a softball tournament, he feared he might never play his favorite sport again. The 32-year-old real estate investor spent three months with a physical therapist. "But every time I tried to go back out on the field, I couldn't stop thinking about the moment when I felt that pain in my knee," Smith said.

Advances in sports medicine have made the physical recovery from sports injuries faster and easier, but a person's mental attitude is actually one of the most challenging factors.

In conjunction with his physical therapist, Smith worked with licensed sports psychologist Robert Andrews. Months later, Smith was surprised to find that he had improved his throw accuracy. Andrews took time recently to talk about the mental recovery plan that should be part of overcoming any injury.

Q: What is the most common sports injury you deal with?

A: I work with more traumatic injuries, such as to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a major ligament that supports the knee. These injuries are really tough to come back from mentally, and there is a very high percentage of athletes who never return to a high level of play after suffering this devastating injury.

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Sports psychologist Robert Andrews offers these tips to people recovering from injuries:

Mental imagery is a very important and powerful way to help with your recovery and increase confidence. Seeing yourself as healthy and fully functioning is a key to a full recovery from your injury.

Spend time each day visualizing your injured area moving through a full range of motion, strong and healthy. You might have to work hard to see this in your mind at first, but after a few days you will be able to visualize these positive mental images more easily.

Use a positive point of view to gain confidence in your ability to become active again. Avoid saying "I will never," "I can't" or even "my bad knee." Rewrite those phrases into positive statements: "I will," "I am getting better at" or even "the knee I am working hardest on."

I have worked with athletes from just about every sport who have suffered ACL injuries. They are usually in pretty bad shape mentally and emotionally when they get to me.

Q: Do you find more often than not it's the mental block that prevents people from reaching recovery goals?

A: Absolutely. With such huge advances in surgery and the rehab process, physical recovery is highly successful. The concept of recovering from an injury mentally and emotionally is a relatively new concept.

After an injury, there is so much that the brain is trying to process: physical pain, images of how the injury occurred and the realization that you may have to take time off or need surgery.

When you go back out to throw a baseball or softball, or jump, a primitive part of the brain called the limbic system springs into action. Its job it to make sure you are safe and won't be injured again. As much as you might want to perform a certain movement, the protective part of your brain creates an intense emotional response - anxiety or fear. Sometimes this can create a physical block where your body just won't let you perform any skill that your mind has associated with the original injury.

Q: What advice do you give to people who've had setbacks in recovery?

First and foremost, anyone who suffers from a sports injury should see a doctor or physical therapist, then work hard at your physical rehab. Then I would consider integrating a mental recovery plan into the process.

There are very powerful techniques available like Eidetic Imagery and EMDR that teach the brain to process injury-related stress and fear. The results are profound. These techniques can give you more confidence, reduce your fear of re-injury and help dissipate negative mental images related to the injury.