International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017 5
their childhood at Centrepoint and its impact on
their adult lives. If they did not respond to this
request they were asked: “How did you come to
be at Centrepoint?,” which provided a starting
point for their narrative. They were assisted to
continue their story with prompts, but the
interviewers were careful not to structure the
direction of their account with the researchers’
questions or prompts. Interviews lasted between
1 hour and 4 hours, with the average time being
approximately two hours. Participants were
allowed to stop the interview at any time they
chose. Given the sensitivity of the issues
discussed, participants were given access to free
counselling if they needed this after taking part
in the research.
Analysis
The interviews produced more than 1,000 pages
of transcribed interview material. Transcripts
were returned to participants for checking and
amendments. The transcribed data was then
analyzed using what Gilligan and her colleagues
call the listening guide (Gilligan, Spencer,
Weinberg &Bertsch, 2003). In the listening
guide, the transcribed interview is copied into
the right-hand side of the margin, while the left-
hand side is used to identify and reflect on
themes and researchers’ responses related to an
identified reading focus. In this study we used
four readings that drew on but adapted those
usually used in this method. The first reading
focused on the plot. This standard narrative
reading allowed us to identify and trace some of
the key areas of adjustment experienced by
participants after leaving Centrepoint. The
second reading drew more specifically from
Gilligan’s approach (Gilligan et al., 2003) and
focused on the way that participants represented
their relationships and themselves in their
relational context. We introduced two further
readings to elaborate our understanding of the
way that participants characterized themselves
and their experiences in relation to
psychological difficulty. In one we focused on
vulnerability, in which we tried to listen
carefully to the stories that participants told
about their suffering and difficulties after
leaving Centrepoint. In the other we focused our
attention on the resilient voice of participants to
ensure that we were able to also hear the
strength in their accounts. The last two readings
were particularly important in ensuring that we
did not allow a dominant theme of either
vulnerability or strength in a narrative to mask
its counterpart.
While we have explored the narrative structure
and content of accounts in other papers (Gibson
&Morgan, 2013 Gibson, Morgan, Woolley &
Powis, 2011), in this paper we chose to highlight
common areas of adjustment identified by
participants while also acknowledging the
diversity reflected in their accounts.
Findings
The Immediate Transition to the Outside.
Participants’ accounts highlighted immediate
challenges in dealing with practical demands
they had faced in leaving Centrepoint. Most
families had few or no financial resources
because all their assets had been handed over to
the community. One participant describes her
memory of this experience:
We went to the Salvation Army and got
everything—pots and pans, a bread
board, and things. But yeah, on the
bones of our ass we had to start again.
But the initial adjustment went beyond these
practical issues to include an emotional and
social adjustment that one participant described
as being like “coming from the moon ...and
landing on the earth again.” These adjustments
seemed to focus on the transition from
communal to noncommunal living:
But what I found difficult when we lived
in a small house was that we’ve got our
family unit and there just wasn’t enough
people around, really.
Another participant described how she had
become so used to the norms of communal
living that she had been unsure about whether
she could enter the kitchen in the house she
shared with her family and help herself to food.
She explained that having toilets with doors,
after Centrepoint’s communal showers and
toilets, had also felt strange to her. Some
participants chose to continue to live in
communal arrangements, albeit on a smaller
scale than Centrepoint, rather than living in
their childhood at Centrepoint and its impact on
their adult lives. If they did not respond to this
request they were asked: “How did you come to
be at Centrepoint?,” which provided a starting
point for their narrative. They were assisted to
continue their story with prompts, but the
interviewers were careful not to structure the
direction of their account with the researchers’
questions or prompts. Interviews lasted between
1 hour and 4 hours, with the average time being
approximately two hours. Participants were
allowed to stop the interview at any time they
chose. Given the sensitivity of the issues
discussed, participants were given access to free
counselling if they needed this after taking part
in the research.
Analysis
The interviews produced more than 1,000 pages
of transcribed interview material. Transcripts
were returned to participants for checking and
amendments. The transcribed data was then
analyzed using what Gilligan and her colleagues
call the listening guide (Gilligan, Spencer,
Weinberg &Bertsch, 2003). In the listening
guide, the transcribed interview is copied into
the right-hand side of the margin, while the left-
hand side is used to identify and reflect on
themes and researchers’ responses related to an
identified reading focus. In this study we used
four readings that drew on but adapted those
usually used in this method. The first reading
focused on the plot. This standard narrative
reading allowed us to identify and trace some of
the key areas of adjustment experienced by
participants after leaving Centrepoint. The
second reading drew more specifically from
Gilligan’s approach (Gilligan et al., 2003) and
focused on the way that participants represented
their relationships and themselves in their
relational context. We introduced two further
readings to elaborate our understanding of the
way that participants characterized themselves
and their experiences in relation to
psychological difficulty. In one we focused on
vulnerability, in which we tried to listen
carefully to the stories that participants told
about their suffering and difficulties after
leaving Centrepoint. In the other we focused our
attention on the resilient voice of participants to
ensure that we were able to also hear the
strength in their accounts. The last two readings
were particularly important in ensuring that we
did not allow a dominant theme of either
vulnerability or strength in a narrative to mask
its counterpart.
While we have explored the narrative structure
and content of accounts in other papers (Gibson
&Morgan, 2013 Gibson, Morgan, Woolley &
Powis, 2011), in this paper we chose to highlight
common areas of adjustment identified by
participants while also acknowledging the
diversity reflected in their accounts.
Findings
The Immediate Transition to the Outside.
Participants’ accounts highlighted immediate
challenges in dealing with practical demands
they had faced in leaving Centrepoint. Most
families had few or no financial resources
because all their assets had been handed over to
the community. One participant describes her
memory of this experience:
We went to the Salvation Army and got
everything—pots and pans, a bread
board, and things. But yeah, on the
bones of our ass we had to start again.
But the initial adjustment went beyond these
practical issues to include an emotional and
social adjustment that one participant described
as being like “coming from the moon ...and
landing on the earth again.” These adjustments
seemed to focus on the transition from
communal to noncommunal living:
But what I found difficult when we lived
in a small house was that we’ve got our
family unit and there just wasn’t enough
people around, really.
Another participant described how she had
become so used to the norms of communal
living that she had been unsure about whether
she could enter the kitchen in the house she
shared with her family and help herself to food.
She explained that having toilets with doors,
after Centrepoint’s communal showers and
toilets, had also felt strange to her. Some
participants chose to continue to live in
communal arrangements, albeit on a smaller
scale than Centrepoint, rather than living in
