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Jul 13, 2023 · Mental health concerns. Boarding school syndrome has been associated with an increased risk of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and unresolved trauma.
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Christine Jack's boarding school was so strict she spent time in 'solitary confinement'. She's still dealing with the effects of a traumatic childhood away from home — and she's not alone.
- Master Theme 1: Initial Experience of Being Left at School
- Master Theme 2: Coping Strategies
- Theme 2.1.1: Dissociation and Denial
- Theme 2.1.2: Compartmentalism Or The Split Self
- Theme 2.1.3: Acceptance
- Theme 2.2.1: Compliance Or Obedience
- Theme 2.3.1: Rebellion
- Theme 2.3.2: Cruelty
- Master Theme 3: Limits to Coping
- Master Theme 4: Fundamental Change Or ‘The Making of Me’
This master theme reflects the experience that all participants had relating to being left at boarding school as a child. Attending boarding school ordinarily involves leaving home, the family, friends and joining a group of unknown individuals in an institution which typically operates using a structured timetable. This is likely to affect all fou...
Master theme 2 captures the memories that participants have in terms of the coping stages they experienced as part of coming to terms with the boarding school environment. IPT asserts that the individual facing a threat to the directing principles of their identity will apply intra-psychic, interpersonal or intergroup coping strategies to try to ex...
Tim recounted a sense of confusion upon arriving at boarding school, and he contradicts his initial response that he has no memory, by describing a memory: Peter reinforces the emotional impact of his experience by describing a dissociative process: Sarah refers directly to her lack of a sense-of-self at that time, by recognising that at such a you...
Breakwell (1986) describes a coping strategy that involves assimilation without accommodation or evaluation, by which an individual takes on the new identity but keeps it completely separate from the existing self. The literature on boarding school children echoes this, describing a split in the psyche, which leads to an ‘encapsulated self’ (Schave...
Participants described a form of resigned acceptance of boarding school, which according to IPT, manifests when other tactics fail on account of an overwhelming threat to distinctiveness, continuity and self-esteem. Breakwell (1986) asserts that this is not capitulation to the threat but a form of creative adaptation in order to compromise. This is...
Compliance is sometimes used as the first choice of interpersonal coping strategy and is associated with feeling powerless when subjected to threat (Breakwell 1986). Whether this fundamentally alters identity structure depends on how cynically the individual adopts the demanded identity; certainly, social approval through compliance is more likely ...
Group support can help those who are facing threat to identity, as it prevents isolation and allows for information sharing and consciousness raising (Breakwell 1986). In an environment of permanent socialisation, finding a group of individuals can be a considerable resource, not only as a means of protection but also due to engaging in group actio...
For children attending boarding school, besides the lack of close family members to take care of them, they invariably must live in an artificially constructed society that involves being permanently surrounded by peers. Not only can this impact the natural development of identity but the fact that such children lack the moderating and mediating ef...
Sub-theme 3.1: At School
A person can use forgetting as a tool to cut links with the past (Breakwell 1986, p.177), which disposes of the identity threat. The fact that many of the participants in the present study report that they cannot remember much of their childhood could imply undertones of psychogenic amnesia, which is often a result of trauma (Freyd 1994). In this regard, Peter’s memory is very sporadic, although there is a contrast between the first recollection of a ‘complete blank’, and then the qualifying...
Sub-theme 3.2: On Leaving School
For some participants, the coping mechanisms utilised whilst at school affected their transition to the world outside following completion of their time at school. For example, Simon explained that life at university overwhelmed his coping strategies: For Peter, the experience of not coping did not happen immediately on leaving school, as he found different coping strategies through joining a company and marrying a dominant woman.
Sub-theme 3.3: Lost Adolescence
An element of their identity change is described by some of the participants as a lost adolescence. For Simon, there is a sense that he had to be sent away to learn how to be like his family: This is revisited later, when Simon reflects upon his experience of adolescence as the ‘good boy’, when he had no opportunity to be authentic: For Sarah, the identity crisis arising from a lost adolescence resulted in low self-esteem:
This master theme reflects the sense that participants have of themselves as adults, as a result of their time at boarding school. Previous research has detailed that ex-boarders have problems with identity due to the lack of a family in childhood to mirror and accommodate them; instead, the children must adapt to the institution (Schaverian 2011).
- Frances Simpson, Melanie Haughton, William Van Gordon
- 2021
May 9, 2022 · But while it is unequivocally true that boarding schools offer high-quality education, limitless networking opportunities, and immense social privilege, it’s equally true that boarding schools also often create psychologically troubled adults.
Jun 22, 2023 · A scarcity of literature pertaining specifically to independent boarding schools leads the author to examine child developmental theory, peer victimization in the British Army, trauma within captivity and adaptive behaviours.
Oct 17, 2022 · Boarding school is a 24/7 experience with nowhere to run; it’s often a place where bullying is normalised. A melting pot of emotions exists at boarding schools, but a ‘stiff upper lip’ mentality means that many feelings aren’t deemed acceptable or discussed.
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Mar 27, 2024 · Primary school boarding students are young and have an imperfect level of physical and mental development. When primary school students are faced with an unfamiliar living environment, they often experience psychological maladaptation and difficulties in interpersonal interactions (Wang, 2015).
