ABOUT THE BOOK

​

Sent away to boarding school on his eighth birthday, Mark Stibbe watched his adoptive parents drive down a gravel road, leaving him standing in front of a huge country house with his trunk and his teddy. That night, already confused and frightened, he was given the first of four beatings in his first two weeks. This trauma of abandonment and abuse was to scar Mark’s life until his fifties, when divorce forced him to deal with he calls his ‘boarded heart’. In this ground breaking book, Mark argues that there are many thousands of wounded people just like him, men and women who suffer throughout their lives with homesick souls. This often leads to them being driven to succeed in their work while failing to engage emotionally at home.

Home at Last tells a poignant story and offers a unique model of healing. It provides psychological insights, yes, but it also delivers the blueprint for a spiritual homecoming. Arguing that boarding schools are orphanages for the privileged, Mark shows how we can only truly find healing in the perfect Father’s love. Home At Last is split into two parts. The first part looks the cycle of pain created by the boarding school wound. This involves four deep impacts to the soul: desertion, deprivation, disengagement and dependency. The second part, the cycle of healing, embraces the four stages of the healing journey: revelation, restoration, reconnection and recovery. These exactly correspond to the four deep impacts to the soul. They are four steps towards the Father’s house. They must be experienced if former boarders are to enjoy the long-awaited end to their spiritual winter.

​

‘This is a moving and highly readable account of recovery from the trauma of early boarding. Mark Stibbe uses his own experience as the thread, weaving stories into his narrative, giving insight into what, for many, constitutes a significant form of suffering. Whilst some readers may not relate to the faith base of Mark’s resolution, the author is sufficiently aware of the diverse potential readership not to alienate those who do not share his convictions. Home at Last will reach out to many who were damaged by the experience. It offers a sense of meeting and meaning, potentially alleviating the sense of isolation and shame experienced by those who feel that they failed because they did not thrive within the system. It is the system and not the child that is the problem.’

​

Joy Schaverien PhD, Jungian Analyst and author of Boarding School Syndrome