Email:
jomillercounselling@gmail.com
Phone:
+44 (0)7719 368834
People are naturally relationship seeking because from the first breath we take our physical survival depends on others.
Babies cry, not just out of physical hunger or thirst but sometimes out of fear and confusion. Being picked up and held is reassuring and if done regularly and with love, the infant develops a trust in the world around them.
This internalised attachment bond which changes and develops over time due to the differing and increasingly complex needs of the child can lead to secure adults, who develop their own attachments based on empathy and adaptability.
It’s becoming increasingly understood that our immune system functions more effectively, our physical health is better and we have a more positive outlook generally if we’ve had what John Bowlby termed a secure base.
We are more physically and emotionally resilient.
If a young child is sent away to boarding school, this will inevitably interfere with their developing attachments, not only to parents but siblings and possibly other members of the extended family and/or community.
If the attachment was already insecure due to parental neglect, then the child will be even more vulnerable.
Abuse in boarding schools, whether physical, emotional or sexual is still a serious and widespread issue.
To survive in such institutions children may develop all kinds of maladaptive strategies from dissociation and numbness to angry outbursts or maybe even becoming abusive and emotionally hardened themselves.
Any vulnerable aspect of the personality is buried and hidden from view. This cut off part is what gets accessed during therapy and slowly reintroduced to the self and eventually to the outside world, once it is deemed safe enough to do so.
Positive, trusting relationships become possible again and a healing can begin.
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