Tag: autonomy

Autonomy is a person’s capacity and right to direct her own life, make decisions, exercise judgment, set boundaries, and act according to her own values without coercive control or undue interference.

Within the Captivity Lens, autonomy may be restricted not only through overt force, but through dependency, surveillance, relational consequence, interpretive control, or systems that make independent choice costly.

  • Captivity Care

    Humility, reverence, and clinical care after captivity This is an evolving field publication. Captivity Care is developing as the clinical and relational implications of the Captivity-Informed Framework continue to be articulated. This teaching may expand as additional applications, distinctions, and…

  • Agency Must Be Practiced, Not Merely Discussed

    A person can understand agency long before she can use it. She may know: I am allowed to say no. I can disagree. I can change my mind. I do not have to explain everything. I can ask for another…

  • When Captivity Begins Before Differentiation

    Much recovery language assumes there was once a freer self to return to. A person became traumatized. Lost confidence. Stopped trusting herself. Became disconnected from her body. Lost access to agency. Developed survival strategies. Recovery then becomes a process of…

  • The Cost of Differentiation

    A person can be told she is free while living inside a relationship where becoming distinct carries consequences. She can technically disagree. Technically say no. Technically leave. Technically choose differently. Technically set a boundary. But if exercising that freedom threatens…

  • When The Architecture Moves Inside

    What Remains When External Access Ends Leaving a coercive environment and becoming internally free from it are not necessarily the same event. A relationship can end. A boundary can close. An institution can lose access. A person can physically leave.…