Boarding School Survivors – Support Conference 2021 | Saturday 6th November

We have sadly missed having two conferences because of Covid so this
year we have decided to hold a day-long online Conference to give us all the opportunity to hear speakers and meet up with other former boarders

This letter is to give you the date and the programme and the information so that you can register for the Conference. We hope many of you will be able to attend to hear our speakers and join the afternoon discussion groups.

The conference is hosted by Online Events and is on:

Saturday 6^th November
10am – 4pm

Fee: £20. We would like everyone who wishes to attend to be able to do so. To make this possible if you need financial assistance with the fee, please write in confidence to Margaret.Laughton@bss-support.org.uk.

Morning: The Conference will start with brief introductions from the Directors

Followed by Guest Keynote Speakers

Afternoon: Breakout-room discussions chaired by therapists.

Our keynote speakers this year: Joy Schaverien and Richard Beard

Joy Schaverien

Revisiting Boarding School Syndrome:
Lockdown and the Resonance of Past Captivity

It was in November 2011 in an article in the British Journal of Psychotherapy that Joy first used the term ‘Boarding School Syndrome‘. Now ten years later in November 2021 a new paper on this topic is to be published in the same journal entitled ‘Revisiting Boarding School Syndrome.  In the light of lockdown consideration will be given to lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic and its very particular resonance for ex-boarders. In boarding school children sleep in dormitories; eat in dining rooms and shower in groups. Always in the company of others, paradoxically, the children are emotionally alone. Abandoned by those closest to them, children are Bereaved and held Captive. This may establish a pattern of Disassociation. Lockdown as a form of benign imprisonment had a similar impact on many ex-boarders who did not realise at first just why they were so angered by it.  It is hoped for a lively exchange of ideas and an opportunity to share thoughts about the experiences of participants.

Richard Beard

Covid – Time to Stop and Think

As adults, children who went to boarding school can feel driven towards material success as a way of reassuring absent parents that everything is fine. Really it is. Look at how well I’m doing. The first Covid lockdown forced many of us to decelerate, even to turn round and look back at what was pushing us onwards. At the same time, much of the rest of the country discovered what it was like not to be able to see your parents – the general consensus being that this wasn’t and isn’t very nice, something we’d known for years. And what of the boarding school politicians who never slow down and look back? Based on his new book Sad Little Men, Richard Beard asks what it is they’re missing.

Richard Beard has written six novels which include Damascus, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Acts of the Assassins which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. His memoir The Day That Went Missing won the 2018 PEN Ackerley Award for literary autobiography, while his new book Sad Little Men was serialised in the Observer in August 2021.

Topics for the 4 afternoon groups

Boarding School Syndrome and how it affects:

1) our relationships with our parents amd siblings;

2) our relationsships with our partners and children;

3) our relationships with friends and in work situations; 

4) our relationships with ourselves.