09/08/2018 Professionals - Boarding ConcernBoarding Concern

Search....

News Forum Resources About Us Contact Us News Media Support Us

Former Boarders Boarding Today Professionals

Professionals
This section is for mental health professionals
working with former boarders.

We are grateful to Nick Duffell, who helped us put this

section for professionals together. Nick has produced
(together with Thurstine Basset) this practice-based
book for professionals: Nick Duffell & Thurstine
Basset (2016): Trauma, Abandonment and
Privilege; A guide to therapeutic work with
boarding school survivors, Routledge and Amazon,
etc.

I really love receiving your Newsletters as

The effects of boarding education on children have there is always something interesting to
been largely ignored. read. I know they are not easy to put
together. Thanks, Bob

Despite frequent references in English popular literature

to the agonies experienced by children at boarding
See all ➜
schools and to the repressed and secretive adults
they can become, the problem has gone entirely
unnoticed by the medical and psychological
professions.

There are several reasons for this. In Britain, boarding

education carries high social status and is
therefore considered a privilege worthy of the
considerable financial investment parents make. The
interested parties, therefore, have been unlikely to
question this social investment, while the children, laden
with expectations, put on their ‘brave faces’.

As a result, problems tend to resurface only in later

life. However, former boarders have expertly learned to
function, to show the world only their facade – their
Strategic Survival Personality. So the severe
difficulties they have in intimate relationships, or
with workaholism, for example, can get discounted
or be difficult to pin-point – let alone heal.

Since the publication of Nick Duffell’s book The Making

of Them, 2000, (widely-endorsed, including the British
Medical Journal), Boarding School Survival and the
Strategic Survival Personality are becoming
https://www.boardingconcern.org.uk/professionals/ 1/2
09/08/2018 Professionals - Boarding ConcernBoarding Concern

increasingly recognised as problematic and

specific psychological phenomena with a
widespread prevalence in Britain.

However, working with boarding school survivors is

challenging and requires specialised knowledge and
skills. Former boarders are amongst the most difficult
clients to work with and rarely present for therapy,
typically seeking help during acute crisis then retreating
in denial, once the worst has passed.

Boarding school survivors usually present as functioning

and can skilfully reinvent themselves. The problems
is that their skills are dedicated not to further adaptation
or change, but towards the continuation of survival
techniques. In this way, they often elude or outwit
their therapists.

Next page: Working with Former Boarders

https://www.boardingconcern.org.uk/professionals/ 2/2
09/08/2018 Working with Former Boarders - Boarding ConcernBoarding Concern

Search....

News Forum Resources About Us Contact Us News Media Support Us

Former Boarders Boarding Today Professionals

Working with Former

Boarders
The key to working with boarding school
survivors is to understand how they had
no choice to survive.

Former boarders have learned to present a workable

front by effectively employing splitting, denial and
projection.

Practitioners must be thoroughly acquainted with these

phenomena and understand the ways the psyche can
structure itself to cope with a child’s experience of
So much to learn and great for
feeling unsupported by parents in an atmosphere networking with others. Richard
requiring 24-hour vigilance against peers and staff alike.

Though linked with the privilege, the schools are

founded on a philosophy that excludes all that is
vulnerable and voluptuous in life. In order to adapt, the See all ➜
child has to make many self-betrayals and self-
inventions. The psyche of the boarding school
survivor follows suit and strives to banish whatever
is emotional or sexual, childish or feminine.

As adults, they find it nigh impossible to unlearn the

strategies once put in place. Breakdowns in survival
can occur within difficulties in intimate
relationships, in parenting, or in the loss of an
identity, such as a work problem.

Although experienced as a calamity, such crises

indicate an opportunity for recovery and
relearning relational and emotional competencies.
Long-term therapy work is frequently necessary,
alongside couple-counselling for those in durable
relationships.

Next page: Survivor Personalities

https://www.boardingconcern.org.uk/professionals/working-together/ 1/1
09/08/2018 Survivor Personalities - Boarding ConcernBoarding Concern

Search....

News Forum Resources About Us Contact Us News Media Support Us

Former Boarders Boarding Today Professionals

Survivor Personalities
The Strategic Survival Personality of
Boarding School Survivors has three main
types:

Compliers or
Conformists
These survivors are usually in denial of any problem
and have identified with the values of the school. The website is very user friendly and full
Typically they say: “It never did me any harm” and even of valuable resources. This is much
if they hated it, may send their own children away. They appreciated, William
identify with the aggressor – better to be on the winning
side – until something drastic happens, such as loss of
their job, an ultimatum from their wife/partner, or some
self-sabotaging behaviour having come to light, when See all ➜
they may collapse.

In breakdown, they may become completely paralysed.

They are in disarray when the negative self-concept is
unmasked and are desperate to return to normal
functioning, when they will most likely jettison any
therapeutic help they requested while in crisis. They
have been brought up to think they should be
independent and self-reliant and struggle to recognise
that a breakdown in their strategic survival personality
might herald a breakthrough.

Rebels
Rebels have recognised the destructive side of boarding
but may frequently blame boarding school and their
parents who sent them away for all the problems in their
entire life. They are angry – either overtly or covertly
with passive aggression – and take a thorough anti-
authority stance. They are often involved in political,
spiritual or alternative movements, or left-wing groups,
which may be beset with internal conflicts.

https://www.boardingconcern.org.uk/professionals/survivor-personalities/ 1/3
09/08/2018 Survivor Personalities - Boarding ConcernBoarding Concern

They are not wrong to condemn boarding as being

against the natural rights of children, but they
frequently tend to ‘throw the baby out with the
bathwater’: they find fulfilling their potential problematic
since it then feels like they are behaving like authorities.
This has to be disowned since they see all authorities as
bad.

Rebel types can be over-friendly and seductive, with a

charming little boy inside, but also superior and
aggressive, though appearing innocent. They are
complex characters, having a big split between the
inside and the outside and can totally frustrate their
partners. Often they are masochistic – i.e. they cut off
their nose to spite their face, prone to bouts of
depression and self-sabotage.

Casualties or the
Crushed
These survivors may have been neglected, abused or
subject to parental double binds before they went to
school. Being so damaged, they were unable to create a
competent strategic survival personality, and suffered
bullying and scapegoating at school. Or they were
abused – often sexually – and were unable to make a
cry for help.

The latter type often is masked by other issues, such as

drug and alcohol problems, poverty and social isolation.
Although children from families of the highest social
class often fall into this category.

All three of these personality types briefly described

above present in therapy as

functioning well (although the casualties/crushed

may not be functioning at all)
independent/ self-sufficient but with extreme
neediness behind
cut off from feelings – to a degree hard to imagine
private and withdrawn – to a degree hard to
imagine
unused to close intimate relationships
frequently abused and bullied
with partners who are beside themselves with
despair since the issue has not been diagnosed

https://www.boardingconcern.org.uk/professionals/survivor-personalities/ 2/3
09/08/2018 Survivor Personalities - Boarding ConcernBoarding Concern

wounded, suspicious, secretive, contemptuous

competitive, extremely critical/mistrustful of
therapeutic arrangements

A curious therapeutic eye here is excellent as these

clients will often normalise their behaviour.

For more on these types, see: Nick

Duffell & Thurstine Basset (2016): Trauma,
Abandonment and Privilege; A guide to
therapeutic work with boarding school
survivors, Routledge

Next page: Learning & Development

https://www.boardingconcern.org.uk/professionals/survivor-personalities/ 3/3
09/08/2018 Learning & Development - Boarding ConcernBoarding Concern

Search....

News Forum Resources About Us Contact Us News Media Support Us

Former Boarders Boarding Today Professionals

Learning & Development

Learning & Development for counsellors
and psychotherapists

Working therapeutically with former boarders/boarding

school survivors can be particularly demanding.

We recommend you check out the Resources section of

our website. Particularly the books about boarding
and the documentary, The Making of Them, can help
set the scene between the child boarder and the
adult client. I really love receiving your Newsletters as
there is always something interesting to
Order a copy of Nick Duffell & Thurstine read. I know they are not easy to put
Basset (2016): Trauma, Abandonment and together. Thanks, Bob
Privilege; A guide to therapeutic work with
boarding school survivors, Routledge and Amazon.
See all ➜

Another useful book aimed at therapists is: Joy

Schaverien (2015) Boarding School Syndrome:
The Psychological Trauma of the ‘Privileged’
Child, Routledge and Amazon.

Boarding School Survivors run specialist post-

graduate diploma training for qualified counsellors
and psychotherapists. The training courses are not
available every year, so please contact them for more
information or to express your interest.

https://www.boardingconcern.org.uk/professionals/learning-development/ 1/1