Beneath the Helmet
Clinical-level mental performance work on what's really holding performance back, from the days before a race to the debrief after it.
Elle Johnson
Sheri "Elle" Johnson · RSW, CHt, LCSWSheri "Elle" Johnson is a Psychotherapist, National Board Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, and Mental Performance Coach. She works with clients and athletes worldwide, and is licensed in British Columbia, Ontario and Florida (RSW, LCSW, CHt) for insurance-eligible therapeutic care.
Elle's clinical background spans community mental health, psychiatry, pediatrics, surgery, emergency and intensive care. She is the founder of FreeMind Therapy, a virtual private practice operating across Canada and the US, with a team of clinicians. She is also a racing driver herself, competing in sports car club racing through the CACC in BC.
Her mental performance work in motorsport is informed by her clinical training. She uses rapid, brain-based methods to address driver fear, focus and recovery, and because she races, she understands what these demands actually feel like at speed.
Four phases of a race weekend.
Pre-race day
The work that happens before you ever arrive.
- How optimizing your subconscious mind can change your performance
- Optimizing mental rehearsal and visualization
- The difference between process goals and outcome goals
- Managing anticipatory anxiety in the days and hours leading in
- Subconscious over superstition: building a prep routine individualized for your own subconscious
Pre-grid
The highest-pressure window in the sport, and the one most drivers never train for. Sitting still with nothing to do is when the nervous system is loudest.
- The purpose of your fear, and why your body treats waiting as threat
- Regulation under helmet and heat
- What to do with intrusive thoughts and self-doubt when you can't simply distract yourself
- How to narrow attention on command
In the race
Performance in the car.
- Attention control under sensory load: radio traffic, mirrors and physical load
- Recovering from a mistake within one lap instead of losing five
- Fear, self-preservation and commitment: why the brain resists late braking, and how to retrain the threat response rather than white-knuckle through it
- What flow actually is, and the conditions that make it more likely
Post-race
What you do after the session determines what you carry into the next one.
- Debriefing without self-attack
- Processing incidents and contact
- Receiving feedback from coaches and family without absorbing it as identity
- Separating your worth from your result sheet
Post-crash return to speed
- What happens in the brain after an incident, and why "just get back in" doesn't cut it
- Guided self-hypnosis
- How to tell when professional help would be of benefit
Mental performance & you
- Q&A
- Micro mental performance coaching sessions (live only, not available for playback)
Parents & coaches
- Communication patterns that build confidence
- The power of word choice when speaking to a child or teen about their performance
Complimentary one-on-one rapid sessions
- 1–2 rapid sessions per driver (one topic or issue)
- By referral, or for drivers who attend sessions live
- To schedule, message Elle in the Racership app
Pre-recorded self-hypnosis files
Topics to be announced.
Every series. Pick your pace.
Drop-in
Monthly
Annual
$349 paid once for the full year.
One membership opens every Racer Room Series, all season long.
© 2026 FreeMind. Proprietary & confidential. Shared for evaluation purposes only. Content, frameworks and materials may not be reproduced, adapted or delivered without written permission.
Train what's beneath the helmet.
Join Racership Academy and work with Elle on the mental side of racing.