Boarding Recovery Articles

The Making of Them
Nick Duffell
I was homesick during the whole of my first term at St.Peter’s. Homesickness is a bit like seasickness. You don’t know how awful is it till you get it, and when you do, it hits you right in the top of the stomach and you want to die. The only comfort is that homesickness and seasickness are ... Read more

Lost for Words
Joy Schaverien
Psychotherapy is about the making of meaning. It helps to give people a language for otherwise inexpressible feelings. This is never more important than with the boarding school graduate. This is because many who attended boarding schools, especially those who went to prep schools ... Read more

Working With Gay Boarding School Survivors
Marcus Gottlieb
In the past five years I have worked in groups with about 40 fellow boarding school survivors and corresponded, spoken and shared experiences with dozens of others. More recently, I have worked as a psychotherapist with around 20, most of whom have been gay, lesbian or ... Read more

Reflections of a Survivor
Thurstine Basset
I didn’t plan it that way but 60 years after first being left by my parents in a strange and unfriendly institution, a prep school in Berkshire, and 50 years after finally leaving boarding school and putting the experience behind me, I got to write a book about it. Of course, when I say I had put the experience ... Read more

Some thoughts on the Men’s Boarding School Survivors workshops
Darrel Hunneybell
I am a psychotherapist, working with individuals and groups. I have been a mental health professional for over 25 years, both for the NHS and local Government, latterly as a manager of crisis and residential services, I also ... Read more

Extract from Nicola Miller’s presentation on November 14th 2009
Nicola Miller
Women want to feel safe to tell their stories as their emotional bodies remember them. The stories that are told on these workshops are at odds with many of the beliefs they have held dear. ‘My parents did their best ... Read more
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Article Archives
- Boarding School Standards - Department of Education
- Boarding school: the trauma of the ‘privileged’ child - Joy Schaverien
- The Best Years of Your Life - David Mair 2005
- Letter to the Guardian - Richard Sloan 2005
- Old School Ties - Simon Swift 2004