Making waves: Using surfing to unlock flow and help you go deeper, faster
Sally Saunders
Therapist Josh Dickson believes the ocean can help people access deeper emotional work. His retreats blend surfing, group therapy and EMDR to harness the science of “flow states” — the immersive mental zone where self-consciousness fades and healing conversations can begin.
Josh Dickson noticed it accidentally. A keen boarder himself, he spotted that people came back from surfing differently. Softer. Calmer. More open.
“I just started to notice that something was happening more than just having a good time together,” he says.
At the time, Dickson was working in addiction recovery while studying trauma therapy and positive psychology. But surfing, skateboarding and music had already taught him something science was only beginning to formally explain: the power of flow states.
That realisation became the foundation of Resurface, a therapy retreat program built around a simple idea — that people may be able to go deeper in therapy when they first enter a state of total immersion in the ocean. “We don’t do surf therapy,” Dickson says. “We do surfing to do better therapy.”
“You can go deeper faster”
Dickson is careful not to dismiss traditional psychotherapy. In fact, he repeatedly stresses its effectiveness. “I think that regular therapy works really well actually, and is incredibly effective,” he says. “As long as you know which modality to use for what condition.”
He speaks from experience. Before launching Resurface, he spent years working in addiction rehab settings, observing the impact of different therapeutic approaches on clients.
“There are fantastic types of therapy out there that are really, really effective,” he says. But over time, he began noticing that combining therapy with physical experiences appeared to shift something in people emotionally.
“What we found is that you can go deeper faster if you integrate other things into the therapeutic process,” he explains. “That’s the whole ethos behind Resurface. The vision is to revolutionize behavioral health through flow science, so using flow states to deepen and speed up the whole therapeutic process.”
Dickson’s own history shaped that thinking. He says he has been in long-term recovery himself for nearly two decades and remains a strong believer in 12-step recovery programmes. “I’m not saying it’s the only way,” he says, “but it’s a proven, very effective way for a lot of people.”
The moment surfing and therapy collided
Dickson had experienced immersive therapeutic retreats himself — environments built around mindfulness, psychodrama and experiential therapies. At the same time, he was attending yoga and surf camps and becoming increasingly interested in positive psychology and the concept of “flow,” the intensely focused mental state associated with creativity, performance and wellbeing.
“I knew about flow states personally, from skateboarding, from playing music for years.”
Then he encountered the academic literature around it. “There was this formal definition and this formal literature about something that I knew had been very important and helpful for me,” he says.
The pieces slowly began connecting. “I was like, ‘Hold on a sec. I wonder whether there’s a connection between flow and therapy.’”
Eventually, he decided to test the idea. “I just thought, I wonder if I could combine the two.”
The first retreat was small and experimental. The response surprised him. “The feedback was amazing,” he says.
On a following retreat, a psychologist joined to collect formal outcome data. According to Dickson, the results showed “significant decreases in anxiety and depression” and “significant increases” in participants’ readiness for change.
“That’s when I thought, ‘there’s something in this.’”
Inside the retreat
Today, Resurface runs two core programs: a trauma resolution retreat and a burnout-focused retreat.
The days follow a carefully designed structure intended to regulate the nervous system while gradually deepening therapeutic work.
Before breakfast, participants are invited to trauma-sensitive yoga sessions, then come psychoeducational workshops exploring trauma, emotional regulation and recovery.
After that, the group heads to the beach. There are surf lessons, time in the ocean and lunch together before the afternoons shift into therapeutic group work. Originally, the programmes focused heavily on experiential group therapy. More recently, Dickson says, they have integrated group EMDR sessions into the trauma programs.
“We just replaced experiential group therapy with group EMDR to see how that worked,” he says. “And it’s just been really good.”
The days finish with stretching and non-sleep deep rest practices designed to help participants integrate the emotional and physical intensity of the day. “Everyone’s exhausted by that point,” he says.
Why surfing creates “flow”
Much like horse riding, Dickson believes the power of surfing lies in the way it naturally generates flow states. “The reason surfing is so good at getting people into flow states is it ticks all the boxes for the flow triggers,” he says.
One of those triggers is immediate feedback. “I’m either standing, or I’m falling.”
Another is what psychologists call the “challenge-skills balance” — the sweet spot where something feels difficult enough to demand focus, but achievable enough to avoid panic. “The great thing about the ocean is you can find that sweet spot,” he says.
Surfing also creates total embodiment and intense present-moment awareness. “I call it forced mindfulness,” Dickson says. “You can’t think about something else. It forces you to be in the present.”
Then there is the physical sensation itself. “You’re moving on something moving,” he says. “That’s such a unique feeling.”
Dickson compares it to the state athletes, musicians and artists often describe when they are “in the zone” — fully immersed, fully focused and temporarily freed from self-conscious thought. “It’s that state of effortless effort,” he says. “You feel your best and perform at your best.”
“My defences were down”
But Dickson believes the real therapeutic opportunity comes immediately after the flow state ends. According to flow-state theory, people often move into a calmer neurological “recovery phase” once deep immersion stops — a state he describes as softer, more emotionally open and less defended.
“You feel dreamy, disarmed,” he says. “Pumped full of serotonin and oxytocin.” That, he believes, creates ideal conditions for therapy.
“It’s perfect for group work.” Participants frequently describe feeling unusually trusting and emotionally available after surfing sessions.
“Our qualitative research keeps showing people saying, ‘I just felt like it was easier to go into the work,’” Dickson says. “‘I felt more trusting. My defences were down.’”
The atmosphere inside the group matters too. Surfing is difficult, vulnerable and communal, often creating encouragement rather than competition.
“Anything you do is a little win,” Dickson says. “People are very generous with their praise for each other.”
Much of the healing, he believes, comes from shared experience itself. “So much of the healing comes from that sharing of experience, even if they’re not even sharing any details.”
A growing movement
Surf therapy programs already exist across the UK and internationally. Dickson points to organizations including the Wave Project and Surfwell, as well as the International Surf Therapy Organization, which includes around 150 affiliated groups worldwide.
But he sees Resurface as part of a newer evolution — one where surfing is integrated directly into evidence-based psychotherapy.
“When I first went to a surf therapy conference in LA, I said, ‘Look, I know I’m at a surf therapy conference, but we don’t do surf therapy,’” he recalls. “We do surfing to do better therapy.”
That distinction matters to him. Traditional surf therapy programmes, he says, often focus on wellbeing and emotional support. Resurface, by contrast, is designed as a full residential therapeutic program built around flow-state science and clinical interventions.
“We’re taking all the benefits of flow, all that trust and camaraderie, and bringing it into a therapeutic environment,” he says.
The response so far has surprised even him. “It’s been this really cool journey,” Dickson says. “A lot of people seem to be buying into it and liking it.”
Words: Lucy Rawlinson, Images: Shutterstock
