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Autonomy as a Psychological Need

Perceptions of Pakistani Mothers

Sunita Mahtani Stewart is Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Texas. A clinical psychologist by training, her research interests are culture and its interaction with adolescent normal and abnormal development.

Riffat Moazam Zaman

Riffat Moazam Zaman is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Aga Khan University, Karachi. She worked in the US for 8 years before returning to Pakistan. Her research interests are cross-cultural psychotherapy and bioethics.

Rabiya Dar

Rabiya Dar is a lecturer at the Lahore Grammar College, Lahore. She is interested in socialisation practices in traditional societies.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 22 mothers of adolescents in Pakistan to explore the meaning of "autonomy" in this collective, highly gender-differentiated culture. Middle class mothers did not spontaneously mention autonomy as a basic human need; positive relationships were, however, readily emphasised. Nevertheless, on specific questioning, all mothers indicated that autonomy was a basic need for both sexes. Autonomy was seen as potentially threatening to important goals for both sexes. Female kin were frequently described as an important source of restriction on women's autonomy. In raising daughters, mothers discouraged autonomy, emphasising the central importance of marriage and the attendant requirement of adjustment to in-laws. Increasing autonomy was seen as part of the life cycle as women attained seniority within their married families. Autonomy was seen as an environmentally determined and life-staged related opportunity rather than a right. The study sheds light on a universally important psychological need and its manifestations in an understudied modernising collective group.

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