This thesis explores the psychological dimension of the relationship surfers have with the powerful, feminine energy of the ocean. Through a phenomenological and heuristic approach including semi-structured, video-recorded interviews with avid surfers and the author's personal experience, the healing power of surfing is brought in for review. Many have reported the sport to be the most important endeavor of their lives, and complexes ranging from benevolent to rageful are often constellated in the sacred container of the ocean. What is the psychological nature of the draw surfers have to their practice and what, if any, healing aspect is does the sport offer?

Mankind once held to numerous practices revering and paying homage to femininity both in her beauty and her shadow. Western culture no longer holds to such rituals and, consequently, has left a void in modern man's psyche. I propose that surfing is a contemporary means by which our culture is returning to the call of a dismissed feminine archetypal pull and consequently reconciling contrasexual psychic tension.