boarding school trauma

 What is the impact of private education on the UK? 

Should we abolish Eton?

Today on the podcast assistant professor in Sociology, Dr Sol Gamsu talks about elitism in education.

How does this show up?

And what is the impact on the UK?

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Dr Sol Gamsu is an assistant professor in sociology at Durham University. He is also a sociologist and a geographer of education with a strong commitment to the politics of education and envisaging alternative futures for education and society more broadly. 

His research focuses on elite schooling and he was one of the co-founders of the Labour Against Private Schools Campaign/Abolish Eton in 2019.

Questions for Sol:

1. I would love for you to share some of your journey. How did you get into the work you now do?
2. Why we do not need elitism in education? 
3. Why are some children worth more? What is the economic gap between state and private schools in the UK?
4. What is the impact on our education system of having such a disparity between the rich and poor schools?
5. In 2021 you wrote a report about the private-state school funding gap in England. What were your findings?
6. Could you please talk about charitable status in private schools? What is this and why is it still in place?
7. P.4: (1869): “This legislation effectively placed these schools 'beyond the reach of normal democratic process' where they have remained.” Please discuss.
8. Clarenden Commission & PS Act 1868: “great endowments were reserved for those who could pay.” You mention that this was against the founders wishes. What were the founders wishes? Is this still the case today?
9. What is the HMC? How much influence does it have?
10. What steps can we do to change the system? What are your policy recommendations?

#abolisheton #boardingschool #eliteeducation #privateschools #education

To find out more about Dr Gamsu's report please visit: https://www.common-wealth.org/publications/why-are-some-children-worth-more-than-others

https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/sol-j-gamsu 

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/

Childhood Trauma and Forgiveness. Why We Need to Forgive Both Ourselves and Others 

 Today I wanted to share some thoughts about forgiveness. 

Why is forgiveness so important in the healing of childhood trauma? 

I talk about why forgiveness is not about condoning what others have done but it is more about ourselves. 

When we forgive we release the resentment and the hatred that we are carrying. 

I link it in to boarding school trauma and also to Jennifer Freyd's betrayal trauma. 

Here is the boarding school men's circle I spoke about: https://www.piers-cross.com/online-mens-circles 

And here is the latest podcast with leading parenting expert Sarah Ockwell-Smith: https://youtu.be/ijqYaxlXK34 

Warm regards, Piers 

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/

On Saturday last weekend I went back to the site of my childhood trauma.

I went back to my boarding school.

It was the first time that I have been back inside the school for 25 years.

Today I offer some reflections for how it was.

How did I find it? Was it really hard? Or was it harder than I was expecting?

I talk about visiting the dining hall, the chapel, the site of the death of my friend, and the old boarding house.

What had changed? And what seemed to still be the same?

I also talk about what I learned about going back. 

To be honest it brought old patterns up for me. What were they and what would I do differently if I went again?

Any questions please do let me know,

Warm regards,

Piers

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/

Today I speak with Nick Duffell who is one of the leading experts in the field of boarding school trauma about intimate relationships, disassciation and homesickness.

Nick Duffell is a psychotherapist and trainer in private practice who pioneered therapeutic work with ex-boarders and specialist training for psychotherapists. He is the author of The Making of Them, Trauma Abandonment and Privilege and Wounded Leaders.

Here are some of the questions I asked him:

1. I would love you to share your own journey of boarding school and what drew you into the work that you now do?

2. “How hard is it to believe even that boarding school harmed you? Because usually the ex boarders don't realize or accept what harm and trauma they suffered during boarding.”

3. I would love you to speak more about the Strategic Survival Personality. Do you feel that we as ex-boarders who were compliers have to become rebels in order to heal?

4. “please kindly speak on homesickness in detail. Because for me this experience was so extreme and dreadful. My hair turned grey at the age of 13. I missed my familiar environment so intensely.”

5. I went to a rural boarding school from age 11 to 18. An extremely isolated and traumatic experience where survival strategy meant I couldn't develop socially or emotionally and which left me utterly unprepared for real life. I feel like the pause button in my life was pressed for 7 years just so I could survive the experience. In many ways I still feel like that 11 year old. Completely lost and adrift. The loss of family, childhood and self is so huge it has shaped everything about me. How can we ever fix ourselves when we have missed out on such key developmental foundations? When we have neglected and lost ourselves so completely? One thing I realise is that we really did miss out on key things we needed..and also that we don't realise what we should have or be because we never had it.. 

6. Many of the ex-boarders I know really struggle in intimate relationships. What do you advise ex-boarders to help them to start to cultivate open, loving and happy relationships?

7. A common trait as ex-boarders seems to be around disassociation. What can we start to do to stop the splitting and connecting again with our feelings – both happy and sad?

8. How do we change the system and bring healing to boarding schools?

9. How do people find out more about your work and your offerings?

For more information please visit:

https://www.boardingschoolsurvivors.co.uk/

And for one of Nick's upcoming events: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/opus-study-day-boarding-school-and-society-tickets-159661599141

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. He also runs online men's groups, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. 

To p

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/

On today's podcast I am speaking with the award winning author, James Harpur about his new collection of poetry called The Examined Life.

In this episode James reads from his poetry book some of the poems which detail what life was like for him at boarding school in the 1970s.

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James Harpur is an award winning poet who has had six poetry collections published by Carcanet and Anvil Press. He is also a member of Aosdana, the Irish academy of arts.

The awards he has won include: the Vincent Buckley Prize, a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship, and the UK National Poetry Competition.

His work has appeared in the national press, including The Irish Times, The Spectator, The Guardian, The Financial Times, and The Independent.

His books include The White Silhouette (2018), an Irish Times Book of the Year, Angels and Harvesters (2012), which was a PBS Recommendation and shortlisted for the 2013 Irish Times Award; and The Dark Age (2007) which won the Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize.

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Here are some of the topics and poems that James talks about:

1 Introduction. 00.0

How James came to write his book as an account of his ‘tribe’. 

2Why boarding school? 7.45

Why did James’s parents send him to one? 

Poem: ‘Separation’

3. Homesickness. 15.30

First few weeks at school and the change from family life. 

Poem: ‘The Payphone Trap’

4 Family Situation. 24.25

James’s parents splitting up at the start of his school career.

Poem: ‘Telemachus’

5 Boarding School challenges. 35.00

James as an introvert in relentless public space; dormitories; prefects, etc.

Poems: ‘Middle Dormitory: Passover’ & ‘Senior Dormitory: Faust’

6. Positive aspects of school. 47.30

Camaraderie, influence of good masters …

Poem: ‘Senior Dormitory: Monday Morning’

7 Under Pressure. 57.15

Different types of pressure, e.g exams. James’s ‘breakdown’ … 

Poem: ‘The Active Voice’

8. Boarding School in the 1970s. 1.07.30

Early 1970s still in the hippie era, but also industrial strife and the Troubles – what was that like?

PP: ‘Uniform’

9. The Feminine Principle. 1.16.01 

School was almost entirely an all-boys’ school with an absence of the feminine.

PP: ‘Sex Education: ‘Terra Incognita’

 In order to purchase James' book: :

https://tworiverspress.com/shop/the-examined-life/

Reviews for book:

The Examined Life

‘Insanely courageous.’ The Spectator

'Beautifully crafted and searingly honest.’ Dublin Review of Books

‘Haunted and haunting …’ The Irish Times

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/

#16 Simon Partridge - Upper Class Complex Trauma Condition (UCCTC) - AEM Podcast - Boarding School Trauma 

In today's podcast I have a fascinating conversation with Simon Partridge about UCCTC.

Simon comes from a partly French post-colonial background in India. His half-French grandfather went to Eton. Simon Partridge was sent to weekly board in 1954 at 6 and to full board from 7-17. He was sent to his father’s public school Eastbourne College in 1960, where he failed to follow in his footsteps… 

Apart from a short time at the doomed Greater London Council (1984-86) developing community radio he has been an itinerant writer/researcher covering: devolved politics; the British-Irish conflict; ethno-cultural mingling across the islands of Britain and Ireland; the psycho-neurobiological consequences of detached upper-class child rearing and boarding schools; inter-generational war trauma; and more latterly Complex-PTSD and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). He is a founding director of the London ACEs Hub - https://www.londonaceshub.org/ . He continues to explore and write, from lived experience, about the linkage between early attachment deficits and ACEs.
Email: simonpartridge846@btinternet.com

Questions:

1. I would love you to share some of your own journey at boarding school and your own healing journey. What triggered your journey into exploring boarding school trauma?


2. I would love you to talk about the difference between boarding school syndrome and upper class complex trauma condition (UCCTC)?


3. Does social background effect how one is effected by BS and is it a cause of bullying?


4. “I'm interested in the generational traumas, generations of generals and admirals, all following in the footsteps of those who came before. And how these familial traumas over a long time have influenced their descendants' behaviours now?”


5. “And I'm interested in knowing about HOW some of those descendants have changed their views/behaviours, e.g. taking a different stand as a Conscientious Objector or otherwise.”

6. “Defining what the categories of Social class and SES seems to have evolved over recent decades, so I'm wondering how that shapes Simon's lens?”

7. “The phenomenon of father who went to boarding school sending son to bs, and so on through generations, as well as both parents supporting both boys and girls 'going away' to boarding school is interesting enough. When we know that those fathers and mothers had a tough time at bs one can't help but wonder why they would send their children with any chance that they might also suffer. Understanding the rationale within a class context is something that Simon probably grasps more than anyone. Would it be factors such as beliefs in either the social or educational goals of a bs education that would shout louder than their suffering, or would they rationalize that things would change for the next generation? Do they think that bs provides a necessary toughen

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/

 Today I am speaking with Christine Jack in the latest An Evolving Man Podcast (AEM). AEM invites conversations about masculine psychology, healing trauma and boarding school syndrome. 

Christine Jack spent 35 years as an academic in the field of teacher education, including holding the position of Head of Primary Education at the University of Canberra. She is a respected and well published Australian educational historian and is currently an honorary researcher at Charles Sturt University.

Christine is also the author of Recovering Boarding School Trauma Narratives.

 I asked her some of the following questions: 

1. What lead you to write your book about your own boarding school journey and that of Christopher Robin Milne?
2. “Do you think boarding school has a place in the 21st Century?”
3. “If there was university research money available, what lines of inquiry might you consider most important regarding boarding school and its long term impact on individuals or society?”
4. “British boarding schools, Canadian and American Residential Schools for First Nations and Native American children, and boarding schools in countries including Australia, the USA, and South Africa, came to exist for different purposes (e.g. remediation, distance, social advantage, skills acquisition, religion). In your opinion what lessons about children's experience might be learned across these populations?”
5. “Boarding School Syndrome is becoming an increasingly well used frame of reference. How helpful is it in terms of describing, defining, helping, or diagnosing and treating an individual's response to boarding school?”
6. “Boarding school life of children is often equated with privilege in Britain - and beyond. How does that accord with your experience?”
7. “How do you see power and bullying as challenges in boarding schools? - do we think of children as 'essentially good' or 'little savages', and does this view shape how children are treated?”
8. “Might you frame some boarding school experiences as Children's Rights infringements?”
9. “Which type of therapy might be best suited to someone wanting to overcome boarding school trauma? Is it necessary for a therapist to understand fully BS syndrome in order to really understand those who are BS survivors? And could a specific therapy ever emerge to deal with BS trauma? Most therapists in my experience seem to have difficulty relating to our particular wounds.”
10. “How to reconnect with the development process of the child that was curtailed?”
11. “How to let go of regrets?”

 In order to find out more about Christine please visit: https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/persons/christine-trimingham-jack 

To buy her books from Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/Recovering-Boarding-School-Trauma-Narratives-Christopher-Robin-Milne-as/Jack/p/book/9780367819521 And from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Recovering-Boarding-School-Trauma-Narratives/dp/036781952X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=christine+jack&qid=161909

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/

In today's podcast I am interviewing Alex Renton who is the author of the book Stiff Upper Lip and producer of the ITV documentary Secret Shame about child abuse at boarding school.

Alex is a writer and journalist whose career has ranged from arts and food writing to politics and the investigation of child abuse. His career as a war reporter and development worker took him to the Middle East, Africa, East Asia and the Balkans. He has worked for The Independent, The Times, Newsweek, and the London Evening Standard and contributed to a host of other newspapers and magazines. He is also the author of the e-book Planet Carnivore: how cheap meat costs the earth (Guardian Shorts, 2015).

Alex has won many awards for his work in investigative journalism, conflict and development reporting and for food writing, including the One World Award and the Glenfiddich Trophy.

Born in Canada, educated in English boarding schools and at Exeter University, Alex now lives in Edinburgh with his wife, son and daughter.

Here are some of the questions that I asked him:

1. I would love for you to share your own boarding school journey and how things changed for you in 2013 with the article you read about child abuse at the boarding school you attended?
   
   
   
2. What are some of the insights that you have had from publicly sharing your journey? Have people in the main been critical or supportive of you?
   
   
   
3. I would love to hear what you have found out re boarding school and complex trauma. I am hearing people talk about PTSD and boarding school syndrome. What is your sense of this analysis?
   
   
   
4. What do you see are some of the main issues that we as ex-boarders present? e.g. relationship problems, emotionally shut down etc. 
   
   
5. My work is in helping people to heal from boarding school wounds. I would love to hear what you have found has helped others in the stories that you have heard? What has worked for you?
   
   
   
6. I love in your book how you talk about initiation (P.41). I would love to speak a little about how boarding school could be seen as an initiation – although not a healthy one. What could we do instead to help initiate boys and girls?
   
   
   
7. What is your vision for the future re boarding schools. Can we change the system? If so how do you feel we can change the system? Can we stop early boarding? What is the future of BS?
   
   
   
8. What are you doing next? How do people get in touch with you or get your book?

Alex also shared about the IICSA and said the following: “I think if we are going to get results out of it for children in residential care, in terms of solid safeguarding protocols and hard law to protect them and the whistleblowers, it will be largely because of Tom Perry's tireless work with mandatenow.org.uk

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems.

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man.

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community

Many blessings,

Piers Cross

http://piers-cross.com/