Social Cocoons: Encapsulation and Identity Transformation Organizations*

The transformation of personal identities is an implicit or explicit goal of many organizations, including “new” religious movements, self-help groups, “deprogramming” enterprises, rehabilitation programs, and others. This essay describes and accounts for one important structural feature of identity transformation organizations (ITOs): encapsulation. Three types of encapsulation are described–physical, social, and ideological–and reasons why different ITOs emphasize certain types of encapsulation rather than others are suggested. Finally, we discuss how the need for encapsulation may conflict with other organizational imperatives of ITOs and we discuss the implications of this organizational dilemma for the successful functioning of ITOs.