The past is in the present.
This may seem an unusual thing to say because while it is true that events from the past cannot be changed the way that you understand them and the emotional quality of your memories can be, although this does not happen automatically. If you are struggling with confusing behaviour and feelings which you think may be connected with your boarding school experience there is a process by which these can be understood, felt and transformed.
Boarding School Survivors
A boarding education is usually connected with privilege however it is recognised that being separated from family, siblings, pets and love can create long-term emotional and psychological difficulties. Children are required to adapt to institutional living and need to find ways of managing in order to survive and this occurs by constructing a Strategic Survival Personality.
Some of the longer terms effects that children who have been to boarding school experience include:
- Difficulties with intimacy in relationships
- Difficulties with recognition and expression of emotions
- Finding relationships hard to maintain
- Keep constantly busy as if following a timetable
- Over focused on work and achievement
Recognising a need for support to make sense of your boarding school experience can begin the process of discovery and recovery.
– John Welwood, 1979
