Balancing personal autonomy and social connectedness: the role of new religious movements or 'cult' membership from the perspective of former members

Title: Balancing personal autonomy and social connectedness: the role of new religious movements or 'cult' membership from the perspective of former members
Creator: Coates, Dominiek
Relation: Psychotherapy in Australia Vol. 19, Issue 4, p. 56-64
Publisher: Psychoz Publications
Resource Type: journal article
Date: 2013
Description: In this paper, Dominiek Coates reports on an investigation into the ways in which membership in a New Religious Movement (NRM) or 'cult' relates to, or impacts upon, the experience and management of issues of self and identity from the perspective of former members before, during and since NRM membership. Qualitative methods were used to investigate the life histories of twenty-three former members of eleven different NRMs in Australia. The findings suggest that membership served an identity function for study participants and was motivated by difficulties that arose in negotiating the tensions between personal autonomy and social connectedness. Coates argues that an ability to negotiate tensions between personal autonomy and social connectedness is paramount for the contemporary self, and that NRM membership can be conceptualised as being motivated by, and a potential solution to, the difficulties of balancing these tensions.
Subject: mental illness; autonomy; psychotherapy
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1326056
Identifier: uon:25356
Identifier: ISSN:1323-0921
Language: eng
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