If you’ve been a boarder, you’ll know that boarding comes with its own unique, peculiar set of experiences that to non-boarders are weird, but to us seem completely normal.

The experience of surviving a boarding school environment can have a long-lasting effect on our behaviours and reactions to stressful situations. Guilt, anger, fear, loneliness and isolation are all common emotions that former boarders like me and maybe you go through even many years later.

To help me process my own responses and help me provide boarders’ counselling in Nottingham, I’ve had additional training in working with people who have previously attended boarding school. We are known as ‘Boarding School Survivors’ – a term coined by Joy Schaverien in her book ‘Boarding School Syndrome’.

I am mostly guided by the work of Nick Duffell, the well-respected researcher and author of several ground-breaking books throwing light on this subject, ‘The Making of Them’, ‘Wounded Leaders’ and ‘Trauma, Abandonment and Privilege’. His latest course is entitled ‘Privileged Abandonment’.

I am available to work with you if you are a former boarder or the partner, child or parent of one. You deserve recognition and understanding. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.