Boarding School Syndrome is an analysis of the trauma of the
'privileged' child sent to boarding school at a young age. Innovative
and challenging, Joy Schaverien offers a psychological analysis of
the long-established British and colonial preparatory and public
boarding school tradition. Richly illustrated with pictures and the
narratives of adult ex-boarders in psychotherapy, the book demonstrates
how some forms of enduring distress in adult life may be traced back to
the early losses of home and family. Developed from clinical research
and informed by attachment and child development theories 'Boarding
School Syndrome' is a new term that offers a theoretical framework on
which the psychotherapeutic treatment of ex-boarders may build.
Divided into four parts, History: In the Name of Privilege; Exile and
Healing; Broken Attachments: A Hidden Trauma, and The Boarding School
Body, the book includes vivid case studies of ex-boarders in
psychotherapy. Their accounts reveal details of the suffering endured:
loss, bereavement and captivity are sometimes compounded by physical,
sexual and psychological abuse. Here, Joy Schaverien shows how many
boarders adopt unconscious coping strategies including dissociative
amnesia resulting in a psychological split between the 'home self' and
the 'boarding school self'. This pattern may continue into adult life,
causing difficulties in intimate relationships, generalized depression
and separation anxiety amongst other forms of psychological distress.
Boarding School Syndrome demonstrates how boarding school may damage
those it is meant to be a reward and discusses the wider implications of
this tradition. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, Jungian
analysts, psychotherapists, art psychotherapists, counsellors and others
interested in the psychological, cultural and international legacy of
this tradition including ex-boarders and their partners.
