Boarding schools and mental health

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/04/boarding-schools-and-mental-health

Version 0 of 1.

Nick Duffell is spot on when he links Tory contempt for vulnerability in society with what goes on in boarding schools (G2, September 30). But the political point sits alongside a human one. Therapists who work with adolescents or young adults with boarding school experience can attest that apparent recognition of the problems, particularly with early boarding at seven or eight, has been cosmetic. Gradually, as the therapeutic conversation evolves, the client’s instilled gratitude for the boarding opportunity shifts into memories of abandonment and fear. There is often a range of psychosomatic symptoms and sexual dysfunctions, as well as severe intimacy issues. And why would the schools be so keen to tell us that the problems have been fixed if they didn’t exist in the first place? It is time for an informed national debate on what many psychotherapists and counsellors with relevant experience have come to consider an abusive practice.Professor Andrew SamuelsUniversity of Essex

• Reading this piece by Nick Duffell filled me with compassion for those individuals who have, over decades past, had a miserable experience in our boarding schools. There is no doubt that boarding (state-funded or independent) is not for everyone. However, we need balance in such discussions. To describe boarding as “institutionalised abandonment” is alarmist hyperbole. The author talks of the moving letters he has received from ex-boarders who had a negative experience. He might be cheered if he heard more from all the many happy and thriving former boarders out there. Boarding in the 21st century is a rounded, enlightened and enlivening experience for the children who choose it. And these days, far from the parents “abandoning” their young, it is the children themselves who choose to board.Leo WinkleyVice chairman, Boarding Schools Association, Head master, St Peter’s School, York

• It is an extraordinary misunderstanding of human relationships that assumes there to be technological fixes to deep emotional wounds. The very idea that we first wreck early attachment relationships, and then set up an armamentarium of remedial strategies (“counsellors, house staff and the latest technologies”) for trying to limit the resultant emotional mess is antediluvian and emotionally illiterate. Yet perhaps this is the price that the ruling class is willing to pay to ensure that their progeny continue to monopolise the commanding political and economic heights of society. With good reason, many of us are hoping that Jeremy Corbyn’s refreshing “new politics” will revisit the status of public schools in Britain.Dr Richard HouseThe Critical Institute, Stroud

• I was moved by your article and deplore the damage to children forced unwillingly to boarding school for reasons of prestige. However, boarding school serves a purpose and can be done well. It was the best solution for me, raised by a hardworking school headteacher, who knew she was a difficult parent. She chose well: kindness and ethics are an undertone of the Quaker schools. While I felt the separation profoundly, I understood the reason and remain grateful to this day.Grethe Hooper HansenBath