| A societal bifurcation of the sexes has created two different experiences of sport in the Western world. Societal ascriptions of instrumental/agentic traits predominately to males, and expressive/communal traits to females, have been challenged. Researchers have theorized that sport has facilitated androgyny, a psychological bisociation of masculine and feminine energy, in women. Androgyny has been primary in Jungian concept; however, analytical principles have rarely been utilized in sport. This study explored three areas of Jungian theory to augment this limited utilization: (1) archetypology, (2) typology, and (3) androgyny.; Phase I involved a quantitative study of 50 female athlete members of collegiate teams, sport clubs, or who self-identified as an athlete. This sample completed the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Rank Order of Archetypes (ROA), and the Goddess Within Questionnaire (GWQ). From this pool, eight athletes were selected for Phase II, a retest of the ROA and GWQ, and two one-hour qualitative interviews that probed: (1) feminine archetypology as a lived experience, (2) typology as a phenomenological experience, (3) gender beliefs and personality, and (4) gender beliefs and archetypology.; Consistent with previous research, findings revealed: (1) archetypologically, selected female athletes identified with Artemis, distinct from other archetypes of the feminine, to a statistically significant degree, (2) typologically, female athletes reported a statistically significantly higher score in intuition as a perceiving function in the MBTI as compared with the general population of females, and (3) a strong reported identification with Artemis was congruent with a reported affirmation of the construct of androgyny. The qualitative interview yielded rich, psychologically in-depth narratives of selected female athletes' inner constructions of self relating to archetypology, typology, and gender.; Implications for sport practitioners included: (1) female athletes were still in search of aspects of their essential gendered self, (2) female athletes evidenced emotional wounding that varied in intensity, and (3) sport was efficacious in their healing and inner growth.; Analytical psychology provided a multidimensional and heuristic view of gender superimposed on Jung's individuation theory. Such constructs as personality, self theory, sport-self confidence, and sport motivation as each relates to constructs of gender emerged from the interviews. |
