International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017 7
members had been involved in sexual abuse at
Centrepoint, either as victims or perpetrators:
And that sort of tore our family apart a
little bit, you know. Like me and [my
sibling] would fight about it, me and my
[parent] would fight about it, and ...
dealing with the fact that I was unsure
and one said it never happened and there
was a lot of confusion going on there.
But even where families were described as
generally supportive, participants’ accounts
described how relationships were not always
entirely comfortable because experiences at
Centrepoint generated areas of silence between
family members: Children could not easily ask
questions about their parents involvement in
abuse parents may have been reluctant to
acknowledge guilt, and siblings protected one
another from knowledge about their experiences,
as suggested in the following account by a
participant:
We have different experiences of
Centrepoint. I have, you know, more
years’ experience than her that I went
through, and I sometimes don’t know
how much does she know about what I
experienced at Centrepoint compared to
what she experienced. ...We haven’t
talked about it a lot there’s been things
I’ve held back on with her about. ..
But, in contrast to these themes of disconnection
in relation to families, there were also narrative
threads that suggested increased closeness to
family members after Centrepoint. One
participant, for example, explained how, for her,
it seemed that only her family could understand
what they had all been through at Centrepoint:
We share everything. ...and they’ve
been through it all with me. ...I’ve
always been able to lean on them for
support.
This capacity for closeness was, in some cases,
attributed to a parent recognising the difficulties
their child had experienced at Centrepoint.
Closeness was less possible when parents were
described as not taking responsibility for what
had happened to their children.
Participants’ accounts suggest that the
transformations in family relationships at
Centrepoint may have continued to impact on
their relationships with family members after
leaving the community. Some narratives carried
strong themes of disconnection, conflict, and
silence in these relationships. While much of the
research on cults/NRMs has focused on
disruptions to relationships with family
members who remained outside of the
community (Langone, 1993), less is known
about how these experiences impact
relationships between family members who
spent time together in a community. Whitsett
and Kent (2003) have discussed how cults
undermine family relationship ties, and it is
perhaps not surprising that these effects might
last beyond the period spent in the community.
Sexual abuse in families has also been
recognised to have significant disturbing effects
on family connections (Crosson-Tower, 2005).
But it is also possible that a closeness borne of
shared experiences may help to draw family
members together. This is a possibility that has
not been documented in the literature in this
area.
Establishing Intimate Relationships and
Friendships
Participants acknowledged the communal ethos
of Centrepoint as fundamental to their
experience there. In positive representations, this
was depicted as allowing easy and continuous
social connection with others, as the following
extract suggests:
All summer there’d be a volleyball net
out and people would come and go and
you’d just be playing volleyball after
dinner or there’d be tennis games or
soccer games. So there’d be just
constantly people around.
In less-positive narrative accounts, this ongoing
requirement to interact with others was seen as a
burden. Some described feeling trapped by the
confines of the community, and others felt the
burden of communal expectations which
regulated social behavior.
But regardless of whether the communal social
interaction was represented as helpful or not,
members had been involved in sexual abuse at
Centrepoint, either as victims or perpetrators:
And that sort of tore our family apart a
little bit, you know. Like me and [my
sibling] would fight about it, me and my
[parent] would fight about it, and ...
dealing with the fact that I was unsure
and one said it never happened and there
was a lot of confusion going on there.
But even where families were described as
generally supportive, participants’ accounts
described how relationships were not always
entirely comfortable because experiences at
Centrepoint generated areas of silence between
family members: Children could not easily ask
questions about their parents involvement in
abuse parents may have been reluctant to
acknowledge guilt, and siblings protected one
another from knowledge about their experiences,
as suggested in the following account by a
participant:
We have different experiences of
Centrepoint. I have, you know, more
years’ experience than her that I went
through, and I sometimes don’t know
how much does she know about what I
experienced at Centrepoint compared to
what she experienced. ...We haven’t
talked about it a lot there’s been things
I’ve held back on with her about. ..
But, in contrast to these themes of disconnection
in relation to families, there were also narrative
threads that suggested increased closeness to
family members after Centrepoint. One
participant, for example, explained how, for her,
it seemed that only her family could understand
what they had all been through at Centrepoint:
We share everything. ...and they’ve
been through it all with me. ...I’ve
always been able to lean on them for
support.
This capacity for closeness was, in some cases,
attributed to a parent recognising the difficulties
their child had experienced at Centrepoint.
Closeness was less possible when parents were
described as not taking responsibility for what
had happened to their children.
Participants’ accounts suggest that the
transformations in family relationships at
Centrepoint may have continued to impact on
their relationships with family members after
leaving the community. Some narratives carried
strong themes of disconnection, conflict, and
silence in these relationships. While much of the
research on cults/NRMs has focused on
disruptions to relationships with family
members who remained outside of the
community (Langone, 1993), less is known
about how these experiences impact
relationships between family members who
spent time together in a community. Whitsett
and Kent (2003) have discussed how cults
undermine family relationship ties, and it is
perhaps not surprising that these effects might
last beyond the period spent in the community.
Sexual abuse in families has also been
recognised to have significant disturbing effects
on family connections (Crosson-Tower, 2005).
But it is also possible that a closeness borne of
shared experiences may help to draw family
members together. This is a possibility that has
not been documented in the literature in this
area.
Establishing Intimate Relationships and
Friendships
Participants acknowledged the communal ethos
of Centrepoint as fundamental to their
experience there. In positive representations, this
was depicted as allowing easy and continuous
social connection with others, as the following
extract suggests:
All summer there’d be a volleyball net
out and people would come and go and
you’d just be playing volleyball after
dinner or there’d be tennis games or
soccer games. So there’d be just
constantly people around.
In less-positive narrative accounts, this ongoing
requirement to interact with others was seen as a
burden. Some described feeling trapped by the
confines of the community, and others felt the
burden of communal expectations which
regulated social behavior.
But regardless of whether the communal social
interaction was represented as helpful or not,
