6 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017
nuclear family arrangements. One explained
how her choice to continue to live communally
made it easier to adapt when she left
Centrepoint:
I made sure I found a flat that had quite
a few people in it, just to make it easier.
In addition to these adjustments, participant
narratives also revealed strong themes centred
on the emotional loss of the community. Even
though some participants acknowledged
experiencing abuse at Centrepoint, for many it
had been the only home they had known or
remembered. They described their experience of
leaving Centrepoint as being wrenched from
their childhood home:
...just a lot of crying, and just getting
your head over that this is how life is,
and to move on and accept it’s over. I
think when we were young, we never
really thought it would end.
Some narratives also spoke about the loss of the
ideal that the community had represented. One
participant, for example, described how his
departure from the community left him with an
ongoing sense of emptiness:
I feel a little bit incomplete a lot of the
time, you know, like something missing.
But there were also narratives that reflected
excitement about leaving the constraints of
Centrepoint for the outside world. For one
participant, this was particularly so because she
was able to spend more time with her mother,
while another spoke about how she wanted more
structure in her life. For others, there was simply
the relief of escaping the abuse that they had
been subjected to. One explained that it didn’t
matter to her where she was “as long as [she]
wasn’t there.”
But even amongst participants who spoke about
how Centrepoint had been harmful for them,
there was an acknowledgement of complicated
feelings of loss and confusion associated with
the absence of familiar people and social
arrangements at Centrepoint. This finding
coincides with the general observations of other
clinicians and researchers who suggest that
adjustment from the community to the outside
world may involve both loss and disruption
(Martin, 1993). It is perhaps unusual that some
participants sought greater structure outside of
the community, but this may reflect a desire to
escape the particular way that Centrepoint
defined and practiced freedom.
Negotiating Family Relationships
Over half of the participants in this study had
come to Centrepoint with divorced or separated
parents, and it is likely that Centrepoint’s
emphasis on nonmonogamy and sexual openness
may have further challenged the structure of the
nuclear family. The narratives of participants
who had come to the community during the
course of their childhood described how
Centrepoint had changed the way they related to
their parents. They spoke of how Centrepoint
had weakened their attachment to their nuclear
parent(s) as they became less involved in the
direct care of their children and handed over this
responsibility to the broader community. Strong
themes of neglect emerged in the narratives as
participants told of having to fend for
themselves:
The adults were committed to their
mission, which was sort of a therapeutic
endeavor or whatever you want to call it
...and the kids kind of were left to fend
for themselves a lot, you know.
Participants who had been born at the
community also described being relatively
distant from their parents but seemed to accept
this as the norm.
Participants’ narratives spoke of the difficulty in
establishing or reestablishing family connections
in the aftermath of Centrepoint. Some described
how they had wanted to regain the sense of
intimacy and the closeness that they had lost in
their family relationships. As this participant put
it:
I still feel like we are still trying to
reconnect our family ...we don’t have
what normal families have ...you don’t
have that wider sense of home, I
suppose.
Accounts also emphasised particular conflict and
disconnection when participants or their family
nuclear family arrangements. One explained
how her choice to continue to live communally
made it easier to adapt when she left
Centrepoint:
I made sure I found a flat that had quite
a few people in it, just to make it easier.
In addition to these adjustments, participant
narratives also revealed strong themes centred
on the emotional loss of the community. Even
though some participants acknowledged
experiencing abuse at Centrepoint, for many it
had been the only home they had known or
remembered. They described their experience of
leaving Centrepoint as being wrenched from
their childhood home:
...just a lot of crying, and just getting
your head over that this is how life is,
and to move on and accept it’s over. I
think when we were young, we never
really thought it would end.
Some narratives also spoke about the loss of the
ideal that the community had represented. One
participant, for example, described how his
departure from the community left him with an
ongoing sense of emptiness:
I feel a little bit incomplete a lot of the
time, you know, like something missing.
But there were also narratives that reflected
excitement about leaving the constraints of
Centrepoint for the outside world. For one
participant, this was particularly so because she
was able to spend more time with her mother,
while another spoke about how she wanted more
structure in her life. For others, there was simply
the relief of escaping the abuse that they had
been subjected to. One explained that it didn’t
matter to her where she was “as long as [she]
wasn’t there.”
But even amongst participants who spoke about
how Centrepoint had been harmful for them,
there was an acknowledgement of complicated
feelings of loss and confusion associated with
the absence of familiar people and social
arrangements at Centrepoint. This finding
coincides with the general observations of other
clinicians and researchers who suggest that
adjustment from the community to the outside
world may involve both loss and disruption
(Martin, 1993). It is perhaps unusual that some
participants sought greater structure outside of
the community, but this may reflect a desire to
escape the particular way that Centrepoint
defined and practiced freedom.
Negotiating Family Relationships
Over half of the participants in this study had
come to Centrepoint with divorced or separated
parents, and it is likely that Centrepoint’s
emphasis on nonmonogamy and sexual openness
may have further challenged the structure of the
nuclear family. The narratives of participants
who had come to the community during the
course of their childhood described how
Centrepoint had changed the way they related to
their parents. They spoke of how Centrepoint
had weakened their attachment to their nuclear
parent(s) as they became less involved in the
direct care of their children and handed over this
responsibility to the broader community. Strong
themes of neglect emerged in the narratives as
participants told of having to fend for
themselves:
The adults were committed to their
mission, which was sort of a therapeutic
endeavor or whatever you want to call it
...and the kids kind of were left to fend
for themselves a lot, you know.
Participants who had been born at the
community also described being relatively
distant from their parents but seemed to accept
this as the norm.
Participants’ narratives spoke of the difficulty in
establishing or reestablishing family connections
in the aftermath of Centrepoint. Some described
how they had wanted to regain the sense of
intimacy and the closeness that they had lost in
their family relationships. As this participant put
it:
I still feel like we are still trying to
reconnect our family ...we don’t have
what normal families have ...you don’t
have that wider sense of home, I
suppose.
Accounts also emphasised particular conflict and
disconnection when participants or their family
