The Un-Making of Them: Clinical Reflections on Boarding School Syndrome

by Nick Duffell (Editor)

Overview

Ex-boarders can be among the most challenging clients for therapists, with many clinicians struggling to address their unique needs. This book presents a groundbreaking collection of chapters sharing insights and reflections on clinical work with ex-boarders in different settings and circumstances with the aim of expanding the body of knowledge for therapeutic work with such clients.

The contributors reveal that the fall-out from boarding is much wider than previously thought and also report on innovative treatment methods that may help therapists address these consequences with ex-boarders in treatment.

Featuring the experience and insights of some 16 different clinicians, many of whom are ex-boarders themselves, this new collection offers contributions from a wide range of theoretical backgrounds, including psychodynamic, Jungian, transactional analysis and ‘energy psychology’. It tells how the understanding of the ‘boarding school syndrome’ has been enlarged by recent advances in attachment therapy, trauma studies, neuroscience, including pastoral, and safeguarding awareness within education. Topics covered include the effects of boarding on girls, on both intimate and sibling relationships, on military family boarders and on ex-boarder therapists, as well as how both careful, patient attention and dynamic EMDR may be used to alleviate boarding school trauma.

The reader will gain a wider understanding about how individuals and society are impacted by this way of raising children and what evidence-based pathways to recovery are being evolved.

This book is written in an accessible jargon-free style and will appeal to psychotherapists, psychologists, psychoanalysts and counsellors, as well as ex-boarders and parents interested in the impact of boarding schools from a professional or personal perspective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032848969
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/24/2025
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nick Duffell, MA, Dip Psych IP, was trained in Systemic Family Therapy and Psychosynthesis before perusing extensive studies in psychoanalysis and post-Jungian theory and training in developmental somatic therapy. He pioneered the understanding of Boarding School Syndrome and his work has been featured on TV and radio since the early 1990s. A psycho-historian and trainer, he is the author of several books on boarding as well as on couple-relations and political psychology.

Table of Contents

Introduction and Chapter Summary  1. The Survival Imperative  2. A Clinical Framework for Nuanced Narratives in Therapy with Ex-boarders  3. The Child in Exile: reflections on Work with Adult Ex-pat Ex-boarders  4. Beyond the Glass: making Visible the Boarding Experience for Women  5. Good for Girls? Co-educational Boarding Reviewed  6. Boarding School Syndrome and Intimate Relationships  7. How do Counsellors in UK Independent Schools Experience the Effects of Working with Boarders?  8. The Use of EMDR for Boarding School Trauma  9. English Landscape: an Archetypal Perspective on the Ex-boarder  10. The Effect of Boarding School on Sibling Relationships  11. Boarders from Military Families: do they ever come Home again?  12. The Female Ex-Boarder Therapist: Collaborator or Ally?  13. Supervision and Clients impacted by Boarding School  14. Epilogue: Boarding Recovery

Editorial Reviews

‘Nick Duffell has curated a series of interlocking works that, together, form a devastating indictment of the enormous harm that boarding schools have inflicted, for far too long, on far too many.’

Earl Charles Spencer, historian and author of A Very private School

‘A first-class anthology that digs deep into the psychological harm done by boarding schools. For the first time, there is a serious attempt to identify and understand the abuse suffered by girls who fall prey to older boys at co-educational boarding schools where staff are incapable of protecting them.’

Robert Verkaik

‘A timely and useful summary of therapeutic approaches, with original contributions of particular interest and importance about women ex-boarders and co-educational boarding.’

Richard Beard, author of Sad Little Men

‘An important additional enquiry that broadens out from Nick Duffell’s pioneering work on identifying the psycho-social fall-out from boarding. It explores the widespread harm resulting from this pernicious way of raising children, and describes a range of treatment approaches for this difficult client group. All clinicians who want to be up to date must read this.’

Prof. Andrew Samuels, former chair of UKCP, author of A New Therapy for Politics

‘This book is a welcome contribution to the growing literature on the boarding school experience. Offering a range of essays by different authors, it highlights the relatively neglected topic of the female experience of boarding school as well as issues that arise for female psychotherapists who are themselves ex-boarders. Using vivid examples from clinical practice, we are reminded of the complex impact of ruptured attachment relationships on adult emotional life.’

Sue Gerhardt, author of Why Love Matters

‘Nick Duffell's work has illuminated my life ever since I first started to address the traumas that arose from my 'privileged'schooling. He has helped me immeasurably, and that has helped me to help others. His latest book brings together a fascinating range of thinkers and practitioners in the field of boarding school and associated syndromes – a force to ensure that children in institutions, state and private, are understood and protected better than we were. Let's listen to them.’

Alex Renton, writer and broadcaster, author of Stiff Upper Lip

‘To what extent has Britain’s class system been dependent on traumatising children? This is the wonderfully uncomfortable question that opens Duffell’s newest book on ‘boarding school survivors’. Although aimed at therapists helping those grown-up children to recover, the book’s core concerns are relevant to all of us. If modern life is governed by the ruthless economics of neoliberalism, then guess where the global elite are choosing to send their children for education? Duffell and colleagues ask us to pay attention to distress. We should listen.’

Dr Suzanne Zeedyk, Developmental Psychologist, University of Dundee

‘Duffell presents a brand-new collection of essays by experienced therapists working with adults who were, as children, sent to boarding school. The lasting impact of the traumatic losses are vividly conveyed by practitioners from diverse counselling and psychotherapy modalities, many of them boarding school survivors themselves. The deeply moving and rich collection of narratives will inform and inspire. A timely addition to the literature, this book will be a vital resource for therapists and ex-boarders alike.’

Professor Joy Schaverien, PhD, Jungian Psychoanalyst and author of Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the ‘Privileged’ Child

‘A bold and pioneering contribution to human psychology.’

Professor Brett Kahr, Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology and author of twenty books, including Forensic Psychoanalysis: From Sub-Clinical Psychopaths to Serial Killers

‘With extensive knowledge of the challenges faced by those who experienced this unique form of trauma, psychotherapist, Nick Duffell has curated a comprehensive selection of clinically focused chapters. Each of these is written by an author with understanding of the complexities of healing from abuse and neglect masked as privilege. This book needs to be read by anyone supporting boarding school survivors on their journey to recovery.’

Dr Naomi Murphy, Consultant Clinical & Forensic Psychologist, Honorary Professor of Psychology (Nottingham Trent University)

‘[In this book] authors give an honest and deep description of their work and don't shy away from difficulties and potential pitfalls. They are also generous in sharing useful tools and techniques. There is a debate at times in the book about the pros and cons of therapists being ex-boarders, as many of them are. This issue is discussed in a very helpful chapter about supervision written by an author who is both not British and not an ex-boarder. This book is a strong step forwards and there are various possible future research and training initiatives which could follow.’

From the Psychologist (British Psychological Society), by Thurstine Basset

From the Publisher