A workshop for gay men who were boarding school pupils
4-5 February and 18-19 March 2006, 10 am - 5 pm
55 Hereford Road, London W2 5BB
Boarding school survivors are characterized by many positive qualities. Often there is an individuality and a creativity, a kind of self-confidence, an ability to tough things out, and a capacity to endure privations with good humour. But there are costs too. The humour sometimes covers profound emotional and spiritual wounds. In order to survive our schooling we may have amputated an important part of ourselves, a part that isn’t necessarily a ‘winner’ or successful, but that is loving and vulnerable. Our lovers and partners may be aware of a certain subtle absence, a lack of trust or intimacy that has become second nature to us. It is as if we were taught only too well how to be private, self-reliant, coping individuals. When it comes to adult, intimate relationships, we need to recover spontaneity, self-expression, the willingness to risk all and be hurt. Our caution and calculation are then a huge obstacle.
This is problematic for us to talk about because boarding school was sold to us as something that made us special and uniquely loved. We had the good fortune, we were given to understand, to have parents able and willing to make great sacrifices so that we would have a head start in life. Is it suprising then that we find it such a challenge to speak about the actual joylessness of much of school life, the emotional withdrawal, the sense of being trapped, the torment of isolation and shame that was in reality a large part of our daily existence? We were sent away to an institution that could feed us, educate us, teach us social skills and manly sports and how to be a confident manipulator, but one that could never give us a parent’s love.
We adapted, of course, to this abrupt, bewildering, catastrophic alteration in our young lives. We learned the rules, kept ourselves busy and, from sheer necessity, we hid our longing for our home and family. We could not share our needs and vulnerability with others, and pretty soon we cut ourselves off from our loving feelings, because to miss as much as we did would be too painful to bear for long. At puberty we had our burgeoning sexuality to face. How did we survive in a cold, rule-bound place where to be queer was usually beyond the pale of acceptability, and everything soft, warm and feminine was starkly absent? How did we learn to compensate, and how do we live this out today?
Participants are asked to attend both weekends. The total fee is £95. If you have any queries, want to discuss anything or wish to reserve a space, please call 020 7243 6752 or email contact@marcusgottlieb.com or marcusgottlieb@gmail.com.
A boarder from 1971 -76 and a property solicitor during the 1980s & 1990s, Marcus Gottlieb is on the point of graduating from an eight-year UKCP-accredited training in humanistic psychotherapy at Spectrum. His therapy practice is in London. He is committed to challenging the mythology that surrounds the ‘privilege’ of boarding school and, in particular, the public school ethos of shaming and contempt for weakness and vulnerability.
