The Silent Damage of Boarding School
CPD Credits
3.5
Event Type
Live Online Event
Location
Zoom & Recording
Time (UK)
10:00 am - 1:30 pm
Standard
£80.00
Trainee/NHS
£68.00
The Silent Damage of Boarding School
Friday, November 28, 2025

The Silent Damage of Boarding School

Taking forward the legacy of Joy Schaverien 

With Piers Cross, Helen Odell Miller, Graham Music, Alex Renton & Zack Eleftheriadou (Chair)

This hybrid event honours the pioneering legacy of Dr. Joy Schaverien, the leading British Jungian psychoanalyst and art psychotherapist who brought vital attention to the hidden trauma experienced by those sent away to boarding school. Schaverien’s influential theory, the ABCD of Boarding School Syndrome: Abandonment, Bereavement, Captivity, and Dissociation, continues to shape how therapists understand and support former boarders in therapy.

This conference was in planning prior to Schaverien’s passing and is now being carried forward to honour her vision and ensure her important work continues to reach and inspire practitioners. At the same time, there is an urgent need to talk openly about the lasting effects of boarding school experiences not only on individuals but on society as a whole. This event provides a vital space to explore these complex issues and the hidden psychological costs of a boarding education.

Through thoughtful talks, film, discussion, and reflection, we will take Schaverien’s groundbreaking ideas forwards, deepen understanding, and strengthen therapeutic approaches to support survivors. Highlights include Graham Music’s insights on early trauma and boarding school; a moving film interview capturing Schaverien’s ideas; Alex Renton’s perspectives on abuse survivors; and Helen Odell Miller will consider the intersection of the therapist’s boarding school experience, mental health, and relational difficulties. 

This day is dedicated both to honouring Schaverien’s extraordinary contribution and to advancing the urgent conversation around boarding school trauma. 

Recording: This event is being recorded; however, the final version will be edited to remove any questions, comments, or clinical material deemed unsuitable for inclusion. We highly recommend attending the event live so you can benefit fully from the discussion, Q&A, and real-time learning.

Programme

10.00 Welcome & Introductions
10.05 Helen Odell Miller
The Intersections of the Personal and Professional in Relation to the Development of the Therapist

This talk will draw upon Joy Schaverien’s case study research, and conversations with her; focusing upon the intersection of boarding school experience and the development of the therapist.  The capacity to work within institutions in professional life will be addressed, linking this to boarding school experiences of shifting meanings of home and comfort. An introduction to Joy's ABCD theoretical framework will be discussed, interspersed with a consideration of how Joy's early art therapy work led up to her later psychoanlaytic practice and boarding school work.  Drawing upon insights from my own career I will describe parallels, especially between Joy's art psychotherapy approaches and early work developing psychoanalytically informed music therapy. Finally, these aspects will be linked to a discussion about the possible significant role of the arts in boarding school life, through two case studies written by music therapists about how music enabled transitions between their home and boarding school life to become more bearable.   

10.45 Short Film: A recent interview with Joy Schaverien

This short, 25-minute edited interview with Joy Schaverien will be introduced by Piers Cross a Producer of the film Boarding on Insanity. The interview powerfully highlights Joy's pioneering work developing her concept Boarding School Syndrome. Schaverien, a leading British Jungian psychoanalyst and art psychotherapist, brought vital attention to the hidden trauma experienced by children sent away to boarding schools. Her influential theory, the ABCD of boarding school trauma: Abandonment, Bereavement, Captivity, and Dissociation explains how early separation, loss, and detachment shape emotional development and adult relationships. Through her Jungian practice, art psychotherapy, writing, and teaching, she raised awareness of this overlooked issue. Her legacy will continue to inform and inspire therapeutic work with former boarders.

We would like to thank Piers Cross and Ben Cole for sharing theses interviews for the conference and for their work in bringing the hidden trauma of boarding school to a wider audience.

11.10 Q&A and Reflections
11.30 Break
11.50 Alex Renton
Breaking the Silence: Supporting Survivors of Abuse in Boarding Schools

Alex Renton, investigative journalist and survivor of boarding school abuse, will share critical insights from over a decade of researching institutional abuse and its concealment in children’s residential care. Deeply influenced by Joy Schaverien’s pioneering work on the psychological impact of boarding school and the concept of ‘Boarding School Syndrome,’ Alex will illuminate how survivors make sense of their experiences and the complexities involved in disclosure. Drawing on a database of over 1,700 testimonies from 600 institutions, he will discuss the therapeutic challenges survivors face, including barriers to seeking support, managing retraumatisation risks, and the role of therapy in healing complex PTSD. This session will offer valuable guidance for psychotherapists on how to sensitively support adult survivors navigating the long-term effects of early institutional trauma.

12.15 Q&A

12.25 Graham Music
Early Development & Boarding School Trauma

Graham Music will gather together themes of the day by outlining and illustrating many  of the psychological ramifications of being a child who is sent away from home to a boarding school at a young age. He will think about early developmental needs, attachment and ruptures, as well as avoidant states of mind. He will unpick some of the neurobiology, and think about the differences between neglect and trauma in a context of privilege. We will think about how early experiences of both deprivation alongside a sense of having privilege might show up in later life, for example in therapy, in relationships or work, and the kinds of defensive armoury we often see that can masks extreme vulnerability and fragility.

13:10 Panel Discussion & Closing Reflections

A final discussion between speakers and audience to integrate learning, share insights, and honour Joy Schaverien’s legacy.

13.30 End

Graham Music

Graham Music is a psychotherapist, trainer, author and supervisor.  Formerly Associate Clinical Director of the Tavistock Clinic’s Child and Family Department  and a  Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock for over 25 years, he has also been an  adult Psychotherapist for over  35 years.  His clinical specialty for decades been understanding and working with trauma and neglect, and he  developed a  range of services working with the aftermath of child maltreatment. He supervises and teaches nationally and internationally and has a particular interest in linking cutting-edge developmental findings with therapeutic practice.  His publications include  Womb Life (2024), Nurturing Natures: (2023, 2016, 2010), Respark (2022), Affect and Emotion (2022, 2001),  Nurturing Children (2019), The Good Life:  (2014) and he co-edited From Trauma to Harming Others (2022).

Alice Jacobs Waterfall

Alice Jacobs Waterfall is the Head of TR Together. A former conference producer, she retrained at Tavistock Relationships, completing their diploma in Couple and Individual Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in 2015. She has responsibility for creating and developing TR Together, a TR initiative created to extend and enhance the centre’s continuing professional development offer with a focus on developing new skills and deepening knowledge in community. As Content Director at Confer Alice enjoyed collaborating with many great practitioners across a wide range of modalities and themes and looks to incorporate these valuable insights in to the development of TR Together. 

Piers Cross

Piers Cross is an author, a filmmaker, & a leadership coach specialising in the area of peak performance, and trauma, especially boarding school. He also runs a podcast around these themes, called An Evolving Man. He helped produce and write a documentary, Boarding On Insanity, which was released in March 2025.

Helen Odell-Miller

Helen Odell-Miller OBE, PhD, is Emeritus Professor and Founding Director of the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy (CIMTR), at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU). She previously pioneered early developments of the music therapy profession in the UK, for adults and older people in the National Health Service (NHS), including innovating a psychoanalytically informed approach. She developed and led one of the largest Arts Therapies NHS mental health departments in the UK (1981-2006) and advised the government on arts therapies. She led international research projects, in the fields of adult mental health and dementia, with over 100 publications. She is Patron of Key Changes and The North Yorkshire Music Therapy Centre, and Chair of The Music Therapy Charity. An active singer, violinist and pianist, she sings in Cambridge Voices.  

Alex Renton

Alex Renton is an award-winning journalist and author who has spent more than a decade investigating abuse and cover-ups in boarding schools and children’s residential care. A survivor himself, Alex has gathered over 1,700 accounts of criminal, psychological abuse and neglect spanning 600 institutions. His work provides survivors and their families with guidance on disclosure, therapy, group formation, and legal redress. He is the creator of the BBC Radio 4 series In Dark Corners and the ITV documentary Boarding Schools: The Secret Shame. Alex is also the author of Stiff Upper Lip: Secrets, Crimes and the Schooling of a Ruling Class.

Zack Eleftheriadou

Dr Zack Eleftheriadou is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist and Fellow of the British Psychological Society (HCPC reg). She has trained as a child and parent-infant psychotherapist (CPJA/UKCP) and as an adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist (CPJA/UKCP & Tavistock Society/BPC). Zack runs the consultancy service ‘Noema Psychology and Psychotherapy’, providing psychotherapy, supervision and teaching. She lectures in the following areas: developmental issues, trauma/complex trauma, migration/cross-cultural work and the ‘replacement child’ psychodynamics. She has published widely, including the text ‘Psychotherapy and Culture’. She is member of The Bowlby Centre and is a visiting external examiner for Doctoral projects across the UK. She feels passionate about early intervention and regularly presents on ‘the psychology of the baby’, for health professionals and psychotherapists. She has previously worked in several London NHS Hospitals and charities, such as Nafsiyat Intercultural Therapy Centre and Freedom from Torture. She is also currently an honourary psychotherapist of the Tavistock Complex Trauma Service.

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