Boarding School Syndrome: Homesickness or Deeper Grief?

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.
Schaverien, J. (2004) Journal of Analytical Psychology, ‘Boarding school: the trauma of the ‘privileged’ child’. 49, 683–705

Boarding school syndrome encompasses a wide range of psychological difficulties. Labelling a child’s distress as homesickness, which is generally understood to be a mild emotion, oversimplifies and belittles the profound grief children experience when separated from their homes and families. This is not just a simple longing and, to describe it as so, is reductionist and dismisses the complex psychological and long-term impact of loss and grief. 

We know that the disruption of being sent away, the separation, loss of familiar home environment and attachment figures, can trigger overwhelming emotional damage.

Sending children away as a socially normalized tradition and privilege … causes wide-ranging trauma for individuals and our class-riven society. Coming from families able to part with their children for social advantage, foregoing attachments in the latency period, facing puberty without parenting and then being expected to emerge a self-reliant winner is not actually a privilege.

Duffell, N. (2012) British Journal of Psychotherapy ‘Boarding School Syndrome’.  Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1752-0118.2012.01315.X 

Boarding School Syndrome can present a particular nuance for girls, especially those attending boys’ boarding schools which traditionally run a patriarchal system. Many girls experience exacerbated feelings of isolation at the expense of their emotional well-being. Their struggles can be overlooked or dismissed in a male-dominated setting, leading to voicelessness. The only lifeline becomes a phone-call home, yet even this solace is fleeting. Parents may be unavailable, dismissive of distress, or the girls themselves may feel huge shame and inability to articulate the problem, leaving them trapped in silent suffering.

The ramifications of this particularly British tradition are more than individual psychological pain. They are deep-seated and wide-reaching.  These psychological patterns ultimately ripple through and affect our broader societal fabric. For many Western leaders, early exposure to a background in institutions which prioritize resilience, superiority, bullying and control over emotional expression results in leaders who struggle to empathize with the experiences of those outside their elite circles, thereby impacting their decision-making and perceived authenticity.

They have this false sense of entitlement, a false kind of individuality, a false adulthood. Look at … them … We can see it, our body language knows it. They are people who make a lot of noise and they appeal to those who are actually in a lot of fear about the way the world is going. Because they mistake that noise for strength. It’s not strength, it’s bluster.

Duffell, N. Why boarding schools produce bad leaders. RNZ 9:37 am on 4 August 2019.  Available at: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018707127/dr-nick-duffell-why-boarding-schools-produce-bad-leaders 

There is increased awareness of Boarding School Syndrome with the recent release of the film Boarding on Insanity: Are Our Leaders Traumatised? featuring Gabor Maté and Joy Schaverien and the publication of The Un-Making of Them: Clinical Reflections on Boarding School Syndrome (2025) edited by Nick Duffell.

Rachel Godfrey and John Shirley spoke at our March LLRC session.  They run Out of Bounds a six-week online Creative Writing for Wellbeing course for boarding school survivors.  If you would like more information here is the link: https://www.rachelgodfreywriting.com/courses-mentoring

The poem below was inspired by a letter I wrote to my younger self while attending a 6-month Healing Beyond Boarding School for Women course run by Amelia White.  If you would like more information about this here is the link:  https://www.theboardingschooltherapist.com/healing-beyond-boarding-school-course-woman-only

Under the Stairs

Under the stairs
Is a small room
with a long-dead bulb
a yellow payphone and
In her pocket, 10p.
When classmates pin
her blood-stained knickers to the blackboard
and run away cawing
When things are thinned out
And the bed can’t hold her weight
as it once did
When the 10p drops
And the receiver, like a shell
Hums only a long tone
Then I will call the number
And tell her, that tho’ she is tired
And rinsed out now
We all have time
I will show her a starfish
Who sits, fat-limbed in a rockpool
And a roving orange octopus
And the wisest of whales
I will tell her
That even the sea is full of loneliness
and many things wait for her.
Through the receiver
I’ll explain that my heart
Is rolling back to her
On every wave.