Boarding School Syndrome

The aim of this paper is to identify a cluster of symptoms and behaviours, which I am proposing be classified as ‘Boarding School Syndrome’. These patterns are observable in many of the adult patients, with a history of early boarding, who come to psychotherapy. Children sent away to school at an early age suffer the sudden and often irrevocable loss of their primary attachments; for many this constitutes a significant trauma. Bullying and sexual abuse, by staff or other children, may follow and so new attachment figures may become unsafe. In order to adapt to the system, a defensive and protective encapsulation of the self may be acquired; the true identity of the person then remains hidden.This pattern distorts intimate relationships and may continue into adult life. The significance of this may go unnoticed in psychotherapy. It is proposed that one reason for this may be that the transference and, especially the breaks in psychotherapy, replay, for the patient, the childhood experience between school and home. Observations from clinical practice are substantiated by published testimonies, including those from established psychoanalysts who were themselves early boarders.

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 from an early age, have lasting problems with communication and intimate relationships. The traumatic impact of early boarding damages the child’s relationship to her or himself and as a consequence the ability to speak of feelings. This is not immediately apparent in psychotherapy but it can be observed in certain behaviour patterns. This has led me to conclude that these constitute a recognisable set of patterns, which I have identified as boarding school syndrome.

To read the article download the document ‘Lost for Words’ Click here

Abstract: Sending young children to boarding school may be considered a particularly British form of child abuse and social control. The trauma of the rupture with home may be followed by other ordeals such as emotional deprivation and, in extreme cases, physical and sexual abuse. The taboo on expressing emotion, which is common in such institutions, may lead to an encapsulation of the self. Consequently, the needs of the distressed child/self remain active, but unconscious, within the adult. This maybe disguised by an armoured, and very often socially successful, persona. The psychological interplay, between these two facets of the personality, may be detrimental to intimate relationships. In clinical practice the emotional conflict between a desire for intimacy and anticipated exile comes to the fore. Three examples demonstrate how within the transference this may lead to a dependent and erotic atmosphere, which abruptly changes to sever all connection. Changes in the frame, breaks in analysis, and confessions of emotional need are all points at which vigilance is required if such disturbance in analysis is not to end in its abrupt termination.