ABSTRACT
When a child is taken into care, or finds herself in a children’s home or in some other institution arranged by the state, those around her then, and in her later life, will view what happened to her as distressing and a cause for concern. The witnesses around her at the time and later will have some understanding of the sense of abandonment she may have suffered, and its after-effects. But the child left at a boarding school through the active choice of her parents will probably find in later life that she is viewed as privileged and that any indication that she may feel otherwise is taken as “whinging”. The gulf between the child’s experience of being left in a strange environment, without the loving support she has hitherto expected from life is traumatic enough. In addition, this decision has been made for her by the very people that she relied on for love, wisdom and understanding, and this constitutes a significant seismic shift in her experience of life. How can such a contradiction be understood?
