SOMETIMES admitting weakness can become your biggest strength.

For most people, the admission that you are seeing a psychiatrist conjures images of sitting on a couch, getting charged by the hour to unburden yourself to a stranger about the traumas of your childhood. It can be seen as a tacit admission of a character flaw, the kind of imperfection which could be greedily picked apart by the steely attack dogs at the summit of men's tennis, but Andy Murray doesn't see it that way.

The world No 3 has revealed that one of the underpinnings of his excellent pre-Wimbledon form has been extra sessions with a sports psychiatrist. This is opposed to a sports psychologist, although the nuances are easily lost on a layman.

While Murray has used both before - Alexis Castorri, a 59-year-old therapist from Fort Lauderdale in Florida, was thought to be a help with his big breakthrough at the 2012 US Open - the sessions with the new man are less about finding coping mechanisms to deal with moments of stress and more about bringing a medical knowledge to understand the complex neurological processes which determine his every action on court.

The Sunday Herald believes the man in question is Dr Steve Peters, the poster boy for this field. Peters specialises in elite sport, having had great success working with the likes of Murray's pal Sir Chris Hoy, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Victoria Pendleton and others through his work with British Cycling. He worked wonders on the troubled mind of Ronnie O'Sullivan and spent time as a consultant to both Liverpool FC and the England football team, even if the challenge of guiding those two to major honours has proved too onerous even for him. In his best-selling book, The Chimp Paradox, Peters speaks of an inner "chimp", essentially the emotional, non-rational side of the brain, which can have a nasty habit of sabotaging everything you try to achieve if you cannot learn to control it.

Murray's impulse to study this area is born less of a need to combat the psychological warfare inflicted by his erstwhile Grand Slam nemesis Novak Djokovic - the Serbian world No 1 has prevailed on all eight of their previous meetings, a run stretching back to Wimbledon 2013 - and more by the need to tame his inner "chimp", born of an acute sense of embarrassment brought on by watching his occasional on-court paroxysms and the realisation that they often seem to be self-defeating. Not since Hercule Poirot, it seems, has anyone been more preoccupied with the workings of those 'little grey cells'.

"There is someone that I use," said Murray. "It's not a mind guru, it's a psychiatrist. There is a difference, so he tells me, between a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I don't know exactly what it is but the work I'm doing is different to the work in the past. I find it extremely interesting.

"I used a lot of sports psychologists when I was younger. And sometimes it helped and sometimes it didn't feel like it did. But with the stuff I'm doing now, I'm actually interested in learning about how the brain works rather than being told how to count to 10, or whatever it is, to calm yourself down. Which, for me, I didn't find that helpful. I'm more interested in actually learning the signs behind it and why you may react or say things at certain times. I just try to learn and understand myself better. When you do that, you know you can cut yourself some slack sometimes.

"When you see how you react in certain situations, it's like 'Yeah, that's correct'. But the thing is you need to be honest when you're speaking to someone about those things. Because if you aren't, you're just wasting your time. You have to be open and honest about the thoughts you're having and the feelings that you have. If you don't and you lie about things to make yourself look stronger and tougher, it's pointless. Because everyone has those thoughts."

While the player clearly feels the mental aspect of his game can be improved upon, the 28-year-old's brain is still one of his most formidable weapons. He has overcome Djokovic twice with Grand Slam titles on the line, and won the pair's two meetings on grass without dropping a set.

While all this work in psychiatry has not been undergone specifically to play mind games with his opponent, dealing better with whatever gamesmanship comes his way, such as Djokovic during this year's Australian Open final, could be a fringe benefit. Likewise, the analytic framework he now has allows him to be easier on himself in defeat. No longer does he envisage entering a prolonged three-month slump after an agonising defeat in Melbourne, for example.

"Yes, I think [it should help]," said Murray. "I haven't necessarily learned about mind games and how to throw your opponent off. It's more about understanding myself better but I think the better you understand yourself, it does help you before big matches. When I won Wimbledon, 40 minutes before I went on the court I didn't know what was happening to my body, what was going on. I was so nervous. But I had felt absolutely fine in the morning. If that was to happen next week or in a couple of weeks and I was in that position, I'd say 'OK, I know what's actually going on here, I know why this is happening and why I'm thinking this way - and it's fine'."

On the evidence of his fourth Queen's Club title, as well as the general clay-court excellence which preceded it, Murray and his mind are in great state as he attempts to win back his Wimbledon crown. And, it isn't just the workings of his mind that the Scot is getting to grips with; he feels he understands his body better than ever before too. Approaching two years after his surgery, the back problem is finally resolved.

"It's small things but they make a big difference for me," he said. "I worked extremely hard before but I understand my own body more and the things that I need to do to make me feel good now. I'm doing a lot more stretching and spending a lot more time with my physios, spending a lot more time warming up for practices and training. I'm doing everything better now, eating better as well. I'm not saying I was unprofessional back then but you just learn things as you go along. I know I'm not young any more and that I might not play for more than four or five more years if I'm lucky. I maybe only have a couple more years left at the top of the game. I want to make the most of it."

Murray, with a little help from his sports psychiatrist, is primed to do precisely that this fortnight.