I would vote for the political party that promises to end boarding at school or at least gradually phases it out by raising the minimum age to board to 13 and then raises the age unless there are special circumstances such as living in an isolated area far from the nearest school. Even the special schools for disabled children were boarding schools. These days, they attend normal schools with assistance from SEN teachers and adjustments in place such as hearing loops. There is also boarding in further education from the age of 16, such as those for teens with disabilities and ones living in isolated areas. Even at that age, I wouldn't have liked to board. It is better to attend a small local school or have private home tutors.

No, Choate is pronounced "chote". It's a very prestigious elite school.

Another brilliant interview, thank you Piers and Nick

I need to find the book. Sounds like an interesting book. Thank you so much for this review

Love to you and sorry for what you went through xx❤

Not only celebrity boarders but fictional ones too. There was the most famous one, Malory Towers, by Enid Blyton. In a lot of TV dramas, films, and novels, at least one character gets sent to a boarding school or has been to one. I wonder is this is by design to normalise it. Even in Hetty Feather by Jackie Wilson the wealthy family Hetty works for after leaving the orphanage sends the son to boarding school.

In terms of celebrity boarders I recently found in a charity store a biography by the novelist and historian and general man of letters A N Wilson who was himself a boarder. He went through a terrible time at his prep boarding school where there was sexual abuse. His life was eventually very successful as an author but in other ways was rather tragic. The book is called "Confessions - A life of Failed Promises". If you want Piers I can give you my read copy as an indefinite loan when we next meet.

Another excellent and really important talk Piers. I can't help thinking that someone should write a book about celebrity boarders and the enduring themes of their times at boarding schools and how this effected them as adults. Of course they are not all carbon copies of each other but as Mark Twain said "History does not repeat itself - but sometimes it rhymes" Your talk also reminded me of the enduring and rather sinister comic character Competitive Dad that Paul Whitehouse did in the 1990's comedy series The Fast Show. He based the figure through observing some fatherly behaviour in real life and how they would try and achieve notoriety for themselves by being rather a fascist sports coach for their sons and sometimes their daughters too. When I have been swimming at Putney Leisure Centre near where I live I have met competitive Dads in full effect. I always feel like saying to them chill out and leave your children alone. And Lo and Behold JFK's Dad was competitive Dad too. It seems many Dads try and bully their children to excel in things that they themselves enjoyed and/or were very good at. They do not obverse what the child is naturally very good at and then give them a lot of love and encouragement in that area. A classic example of this was in the Film Billie Eliot when his father discovered to his great disgust that his son was very good at dancing and wanted to be a ballet dancer. The bottom line is that children are their own people. Although we need to teach them right from wrong they are not an extension of the ego of the parent. And sometimes it really is the parent that needs to grow up and recognise this.

Jack Whitehall has written about it too.

Really fantastic interview. Thank you Cathy and Piers. Listening to what was said I think both society and many doctors and other mental health professionals still have too rigid a view on what mental illness is and is not. I think sometimes psychiatry can be part of the answer - but a part only. Everyone as an individual needs a tailor fitted response and this can be very hard to arrange on the limitations of the NHS (though there are some truly great doctors and psychologists and therapists working within it) Not only is Cathy right in seeing psychiatric hospital like being at boarding school but so can living in a mental hostel or so called "therapeutic community" Very often I think calling these places communities is like spraying some cheap air freshener on a very very dirty and smelly sock. They can call themselves communities but at the same time they are places where there can be physical assault and even worse verbal abuse and profound mental cruelty. One man in my mental health hostel (which I was told I would live in regardless of my personal choice in the matter) had clearly been very profoundly abused both mentally and sexually by an older man. He thus did not understand healthy relationships and was trying to start sexual relationships with vulnerable young men (like myself at the time) and also dishing out highly abusive verbal remarks. Although the head of the hostel insisted we call it a community the combination of this man and various vulnerable adults did not make for a community - rather a time bomb. It is also profoundly patronising to think that people should be nicer and more community minded souls simply because they have prolonged mental health conditions and/or learning disabilities. The abuse that went on in addition to the fact that the structure of the building was run down, for most people there simply wasn't enough to do (voluntary work was often very boring and people didn't like being expected to work for nothing) and the food was often dreadful meant that the place was by default about keeping mental illness ticking over rather than producing an environment that would encourage its decline. Most of the people who worked there were not properly qualified and made very basic errors. Apart from people having overtly blank timetables it was a boarding school type atmosphere. Especially for those who had to share a room. It was also complete with some people like myself having an exeat most weekends to see my parents who did not really know what was going on and which were frightful countdowns to going back to the hostel again I think the biggest problem people in mental health or learning disability hostels face is not only is it a form of post hospital ghettoism by stealth is that not enough people - especially in politics care enough to really make them better. Even though inspected, people within the hostels know often not to rock the boat. The inspectors will extract information about them not being good places.Then after a cuddly chat they will disappear never to be seen again. Then the informer (or grasser to use boarding school language) may be faced with a very peeved hostel leader asking them why they have caused all this trouble. It would be very interesting to have some statistics and moreover some stories about people doing this tread mill of boarding school. Profound Breakdown. Hospital. Hostel. Stuck. People deserve better.

Wonderful ❤

I taught leadership for many years, including for several universities. You're right about emotional intelligence. Leadership teaching is often over-complicated, but in fact it is very simple (but not easy). You simply need to care, principally about your people (might be your family, friends, workforce, fellow citizens). Everything else flows from that. It's why narcissists make such bad leaders, and why public schools keep failing the UK.

Another great talk Piers. The only other point I have is that if you are not a leader in society that does not make you a lesser human being. Apart from anything else leaders need a tremendous amount of support and the greatest leaders realise this and vocal about it. They also recognise that they need people near to them who will have good ideas too and provide constructive criticism - criticism that is designed to make their leadership even better rather than to put them down. A good leader is a good listener and this is what I felt was one of the main things that went wrong with Thather's leadership especially after the 1987 election when she tended to sack people who disagreed with her and did not head the warnings about the Poll tax. Leaders need a lot of practical support (for instance with finance and admin) but last but by no means least they also need emotional support. They are fallible fragile human beings like the rest of us and we should not expect them to be any other way. One of the things that Frank Herbert was warning us about in his book Dune and its successors is that leadership and personality cults are very very wrong and can turn hero's very quickly into demogogues. A good leader is always transparent that they are just a man or just a woman and will never be anything else.

It struck a chord with me when Cathy said that at boarding school you are 'taught to be an island' and to conceal or even eliminate emotions. That creates many problems later in life. Another thing that resonated with me was when she said how much her family had suffered. I can't help reflecting on the damage I have caused.

Hi Piers, how can i contact you?

This is an excellent talk. I think it is also true that a good leader always takes responsibility for something bad that happens on their watch. They may not have personally caused it but they will certainly deal with it. Roosevelt apparently had a poster in his study in the White House saying "The buck stops here" whereas by the turn of 1944 to 1945 when Germany was clearly loosing the war Hitler added the Germans themselves to the very long list of people he hated and detested. He decided that the second world war and the holocaust were not his wrongdoing - rather the German people had let him down by not fighting and persecuting Jewish people strongly and efficiently enough. I think you will find this business of leaders blaming others, albeit in a more minor way is common elsewhere including among some boarding school survivors. The weak leader says who can I blame. The strong leader says what lessons can I learn from this and how can I do it better in the future.

Thank you Cathy and Piers 👌

Such an important conversation thank you Piers and Nick ❤

It does seem so strange the connection wasn't made. Brave lady.

Thankyou Cathy for sharing your story that touches on many situations and memories that are so relatable for ex-boarders. Your journey into experiencing psychiatric dogma with your " treatment " along with the corruption of corporate "big pharma, " and miraculously coming out the other side with much hard-won wisdom to share, is very moving. I look forward to reading your new book when it is available. My ears pricked up when you mentioned encounters with Mark Stibbe, Cathy. ( Piers' earlier interviews with Dr Mark Stibbe remain some of the most impactful for me personally.) Mark's book " Home At Last - Freedom from Boarding School Pain ", is on my " Must buy and read " list, along with your books that are featured at your website which I've visited after seeing your interview. " So many books, so little time. "📚🤗

Amazing story, I am so sorry for all the pain you were put through by your parents. Been there and done that.

"Did I go through all that for nothing?" That hit me in the heart - being told "You're the problem!" when it's patently obvious that impersonal institutions are no place for children. Lovely hearing your story, Cathy.

😇🥰🥰

Thank you Cathy and Piers

Wow!!! This is so powerful and very important information shared with clarity 👏👏💜

I was in US Army. When I was in the 101st Airborne I was hazed. They tried to break me mentally when I was in basic training, but I always told myself I wouldn't let them break me. I did get only 5 hours sleep at night for years and it hurt my health a lot. Eventually I wised up and started getting more sleep and treating my body better. Thankfully I got out after a few years. I never let them get me to the point of thinking they were my saviors because a lot of the people I worked with were the biggest jerks I've ever met in my life. In fact, I put all my videos of my deployment to Kosovo with them on my KZbin channel to expose them. They didn't expect that coming. Now anyone can see a lot of them acting as fools.

My god she really needs to clear her throat. That is the most gravely, grating voice I’ve ever heard

Piers ..what an interesting interview. I'll have to watch it several times as there is so much that Graham talks about which is applicable to things I have seen and experienced. Thank you both, very much!

I like this type of video Piers. Do you ever find some cover in your garden space while it's raining and just listen? I find the rain relaxing.

A really really useful discussion. A huge thank you to both of you. Having worked as a volunteer with people with learning disabilities I think the issue of neglect is really important here. People can assume that when a person with learning disabilities is very quiet and passive and seems apathetic to those around them it is to do with the disability. In fact it could well be that they were neglected early on in life and now, whether still at home or in a hostel for people with learning disabilities they continue to be neglected. Jumping to conclusions that it is all to do with the disability could have very detrimental reprecussions. That is why we desperately need doctors and therapists who have a good and detailed knowledge of both mental illness and trauma and learning disabilities so they can entangle what is to do with what, and come up with better support and treatment. As it is, research to support and empower people with learning disabilities is very much a Cinderella service - there are not enough psychiatrists and psychologists working on it. And also much of the existing research is slanted to people with the more mild forms of learning disability. If someone has a deeper learning disability then in order for them to express their opinion and be understood it may well take a communication expert or someone who knows them really well or better still someone who ticks both boxes.

Rip Rick He's at peace now ✝️🙏

DV

dripping taps in the dorms, 'heating' off or on lowest setting, having tuck confiscated...

The level of abuse is one step short of murder. A young child could easily have been killed at that school. On so many levels it is sick, frightening, wrong and must be stopped

Thank you both for your courage and eloquence. What you describe is abuse beyond comprehension. I also went to a Prep school that was disfunctional but n different ways.

I now consider boarding school to be child abuse. But at the time I was in boarding, it felt like an improvement over my family's home which was quite chaotic. So my story has always been that boarding was fine, but this meant overlooking the neglect there. Thanks.

Thank you Graham, here another art therapist, trained at Goldsmith's...any thoughts on Hannah Barnes book, about Tavistock, cheers...thanks, Piers!

Thank you for your very interesting reflections. It seems that boarding school syndrome resembles cptsd

Have you heard of epigenetics and intergenerational trauma?

Hey Piers, I am curious for your thoughts on this topic but applied to adult psychology. I have been witness to the greatest atrocities documented in Palestine over the past year and I feel it in my core the more I see the less numb I am, I cannot go down the route of apathy knowing and seeing what I have. Doesn't this faculty in our psyches show us that war and genocide is an unnatural thing for humans to do? Why should it hurt us to see others hurt if not that we are meant to live harmoniously.

In addition to what you are talking about Piers it is worth remembering that people (adults as well as children) can be traumatised by what they see on television and on films. With films for adults (as opposed to adult movies) there is no completely easy answer here as it is important for cinema to reflect real life and difficult themes and not be just about pink fluffy bunny rabbits. Giving a film a certificate does not completely solve the problem. People can still find a deeply personal link to a film or something on the TV news and get very badly effected. I remember this happened to me when I was watching a film called The Baby of Macon by Peter Greenaway which featured a prolonged scene of appalling sexual abuse. Although I stopped watching the movie I was still very affected and distressed by it. And to a degree still am. This is because I myself have been sexually abused at boarding school and although I knew the film had an eighteen certificate I did not know that the particular scene was coming up. I will not describe it as it may disturb others. With children there is a very important general rule that they do not see images of graphic violence on TV, or something very frightening, and certainly nothing sexual as people of eight years or under will usually see sexual intercourse as an act of assault even if it is loving sex. As adults we may not know precisely what will trigger us - especially as for good or for ill certain film directors push things to further extremes. There is a difference between being frightened or slightly disturbed by something in a film and actually being traumatised by it but the latter can I believe happen.

In boarding school there can be double trouble with mirror neurons and boarding school culture. People seeing other people being severely abused will firstly get a mirror neuron reaction to this and feel very disturbed. But the poisonous boarding school etiquete is that you never tell on or "grass up" the abuser or bully. This will certainly mean don't tell a teacher or house master or mistress or matron. It may also mean don't tell even other boys. Except perhaps fellow bullies. And as time goes by it will become harder and harder to talk about what they have seen. And it may become clear that the "don't grass up" rule is a load of poisonous rubbish - especially when it comes to heavy abuse. Thus the observer person may be traumatised by guilt as well as the mirror neurons. They get frightened maybe that if they do now tell someone then that someone will say "well my goodness me. Why didn't you tell me earlier" thus firing up the observers inner critic and causing more guilt. Such people will probably need just as much support as those who were the direct victims of the abuse. The bullies also need support in the form of very clear signposting and a lot of tough love. As well as having their family situation investigated by a body independent from the boarding school. On this topic middle class and upper class families who send their children to boarding school are just as likely to be abusive as working class families - despite snobby ideas to the contrary. The difference is that in many cases the working class family will be more likely to receive a visit by a social worker or even the police whereas for those with wealth they are more likely to have their soiled practices hidden away.

Hi, Piers, thanks, please consider to talk about the latest book written by the Principal, have mentioned to you already, I think it is important...cheers...🙂

Isn’t it called vicarious trauma?

Thank you for this. It makes a tremendous amount of sense. Although I have worked with some very good therapists I do not think I have really defeated the emotional neglect I went through as a very young child when my parents were simply overloaded with caring responsibilities. This does not mean I will give up though or make the classic mistake of blaming other people. It is clear that art is a very very powerful medium and a huge part of being human. I am going to draw pictures of the three year old I was being left alone without really much of a clue as to what was going on. It is very very important for myself and others to realise that you do not have to be a good technical artist to do art therapy. All that is required is to be as emotionally honest as possible within the medium. And I will see what happens. To those others who have been neglected I would say two things. Firstly you really matter as a person completely regardless of whether you feel or don't feel you do. Secondly you have every right to be listened to without advise or judgement and to have your feelings taken seriously. Mocking children is appallingly damaging. I really hope you haven't been through this but if you have it says a great deal about the mocker and absolutely nothing about you.

Robert's arguments and use of statistics are a little over-simplistic. He seems to lump all private schools into the same category as elite schools like Eton & Harrow etc, when these only account for a small proportion of private schools. He also overlooks other forms of educational privilege - such as the tendency of affluent parents to buy houses in expensive neighbourhoods to ensure access to the top state schools. His proposal to impose quotas on privately educated pupils - apart from being slightly unhinged (how would you enforce that? What if someone doesn't feel comfortable disclosing their background to strangers?) - would mainly benefit children who go to state schools in well-off areas and/or those who receive extensive private tuition outside of school. He consistently repeats the 7% figure regarding the proportion of children who attend private schools - which, while technically correct, is misleading in the context of this argument as it refers only to the proportion of children *currently* at private schools, rather than the proportion of children who will attend such as school *at some stage* of their education.

I feel this video will be really important to a couple of people I know. You summarised this really well. Thank you.

A lot of interesting points made during this interview. Inevitably there will be some that question the phenomenon of Boarding School Survivor's Syndrome. As someone who is in complete agreement with Nick Duffell, and can corroborate everything he says from my own experience, I don't necessarily mind people expressing a contrarian view. It is very important we do not respond to them defensively. It is important to know that the research issues are complicated and much more work needs to be done. But the important thing is that these things are discussed. My own view is that the more the subject is discussed, the more the awareness of the pyschological damage that boarding schools do to individuals will grow, the more will be the people who identify with Nick Duffell's work, and the more will be the numbers of people that will be able to deal with their condition.

For women boarders so much of what we have learned has been about being of service. I have burned out more than once over being of service to others (clients, and as a mum). Over-giving. Not knowing how to replenish the giving place. I think there are some links missing here between the workaholic and the person aware enough to see the need to take a break and get exercise, and then actually DOING IT. I have been stuck in these places. I liked your ideas to break up work. To take mini-breaks. And to use them better for wellness rather than leisure/pleasure. Thanks Piers.

I think this is a really good talk. Unfortunately - especially for some men there can be this quite boastful macho idea about over work and over pushing yourself. For some people the really courageous and difficult thing to do isn't to keep on working but to realise you need to stop for a bit and reorganise your time. Men in particular can spend too much time in the office because they find the discipline and the boundaries of the office far easier to navigate than those of family life. The irony is that some of them will then say "but look how hard I am working for you all" when actually the family may well want them to simply be more around and that to them is more important than the extra money the extra work can produce. Having said all of that I think very very often it is women in our society who work harder than men. Not only do they very frequently have a wage paying job but even though we like to think we're all very progressive about these issues very often it is the still woman who on top of the paid job has to manage the house and take care of the children. So the issue of burn out I think is very often even bigger for women than men. One thing you did not talk about Piers was alcohol and other drugs. Not only is alcohol if over used very often a severe depressant but it also mucks up the quality of our sleep - and good sleep of course is vital. Many people in parliaments all over the world drink far too much. Which means they sleep less and less well. Biologists have found that when we lack sleep we are more inclined to make decisions with the emotional parts of the brain instead of being thoughtful and logical. Feelings are vital but most political decisions require very careful and measured thought rather than an emotional reaction. And the decisions politicians make effect us all.