Heal your boarding school trauma, your mental health and your relationships

Start the journey to more love and joy

You can heal the legacy of boarding school and early separation, rediscover your inner resilience and rebuild strained relationships. I can help you on this journey with trauma-informed well-being and couples coaching.

Sorrel Pindar, Transformational Relationship Coach

Hello - I'm Sorrel, a qualified Relationship. I support people who are experiencing conflict in their relationships and who are seeking to heal the trauma of their past. For instance:

  • Adults still affected by boarding school or early separation from their parents.

  • Couples who feel stuck in a pattern of conflict, criticism, withdrawal or walking on eggshells.

  • Professionals living with anxiety, overthinking or burnout who want calm, resilient mental health.

To find out more about how I can help you, click the button.

What’s the legacy of early separation and boarding school?

Early separation often teaches children to shut down emotions, become overly independent, or cope by disconnecting.

In adult life this can show up as anxiety, overthinking, emotional distance, difficulty trusting others, or feeling numb under pressure.

Coaching helps you recognise these old survival strategies and replace them with healthier, more connected ways of relating.

"I'm at the end of my tether! Nothing I do makes any difference and my partner just doesn't understand. We fight all the time and when we're not fighting I'm walking on eggshells."

If you're struggling with the stress of a difficult relationship, there is a solution. You can reconnect as a couple, and find love and happiness. You can do this on your own or you can invite your partner to join with you in changing your relationship dynamics.

As you work on the relationship, you will also start to heal your own trauma, because they are inter-connected. When you work on them in tandem it's a potent mix!

If you work with me, we can work one-to-one or I can work with you both as a couple. I won't ask you to revisit your past and re-experience the pain and fear as this has proven to be inadequate to the task of bringing about healing. 

Instead I will help you connect more deeply with your partner and your innate healing capacity, enabling you to transform from the inside-out.

How can coaching help you rebuild trust and connection?

Coaching helps you understand the patterns that keep you stuck: criticism, withdrawal, shutting down, or walking on eggshells.

Together we look at what triggers you, how you respond, and what you need in order to feel safe again.

You learn practical tools for calmer communication, clearer boundaries, and reconnecting without repeating the same cycles.

In the words of my client, Matthew...

Testimonials

Start with these two free e-books

Find out more about how your childhood experiences are showing up in your adult life. This is the first step to healing yourself and your relationships and achieving peace and well-being.

coming home: Beyond Boarding School Survival

We are called boarding school survivors because we had something we had to survive. When we find ourselves in a challenging situation, we develop skills and strategies to keep us safe and help us survive. The problem is that these strategies continue to influence our behaviour many years later. This short guide will help you recognise and integrate these survival strategies - an important part of the healing process.

Three Steps to a Magical Relationship

This e-book takes you through three stages on the journey towards relationship renewal. We start with your grounding: who you are, what you need, your inner sovereignty. Then into curiosity & compassion where you start to see your partner and yourself with new eyes. And in the final stage you learn how to ask for what you need and negotiate your differences.

Services which flex to suit you

There are three broad areas of difficulties I work with: Relationship issues, mental health issues and the difficulties experienced by people who went to boarding school.

You can work with me 1-to-1 or as a couple, you can work at your own pace on a home-study course or you can join a group coaching programme.

Life after boarding school


Boarding school leaves us with a legacy whether or not we enjoyed our time there. For some of us it was a traumatic experience which continues to cause distress decades later.

Boarding school can cause difficulties with expressing our feelings or discomfort about getting close to others. For others the legacy is in our ability to stay in control no matter the cost to our relationships.

As a boarding school 'survivor' myself I'm well-placed to support clients who boarded and to help tease out the impact of school in adulthood.

Relationship & couples coaching


It's very easy to lose perspective when things turn sour in a relationship. And it's all too easy to feel like we're the victim and blame each other.

You may be wishing your partner would change, but there is only one person you can change and that's yourself.

Working with you 1-to-1 or as a couple, my role is to help you see what each of you is contributing to the dysfunction in your relationship and change those patterns by healing the trauma and teaching you new skills.

I understand because I’ve been there.

Hi, I’m Sorrel Pindar and I'm a trauma-informed relationship and couples coach.

My journey to coaching started when I was 11 and my parents sent me to boarding school. Nine years later I suffered a second major trauma when my boyfriend took his life.

I suffered on and off with depression for the next 40 years, and I had years of counselling and psychotherapy. And while they helped, it simply wasn't enough. While I was caught up in the battle with depression, I burned through four relationships in which I could never see what I was doing wrong. 

Then in 2018 I discoverd the 3 Principles, a different understanding of the mind and the self. It had tremendous implications for healing and I benefited enormously from this new understanding of how we heal and grow. I learned how to love and was able to create the relationship I longed for.

I have worked with hundreds of people who have experienced anxiety, depression and PTSD, resulting from stress, ACE and other trauma, including complicated grief, and I helped them get to a place where they could feel confident & comfortable in their own skin and able to connect with their partners at a much deeper level.

I can do the same for you. 

What makes my approach unique?

My own personal experience has shaped the work I do. This includes seven years in boarding school, the trauma of bereavement by suicide and a history of very difficult relationships. But I have also experienced post-traumatic growth which encompasses my current happy and very loving relationship.

Find out more about my approach in these three e-books. Click on the images to download.

coming home: Beyond Boarding School Survival
The Survival Kit Workbook
ENOUGH: Six Secrets of Post-Traumatic Growth

"The realisation that talking with somebody who has been through the same boarding school experience might actually be helpful was something of a revelation. Sorrel gave me the space to think deeply about the way I choose to behave and to discuss the reasons why that might be, as well as helping me to think of ways I might be able to change. As a result I think I am slowly learning to be more responsive to my loved ones, rather than reactive.

"Taking the time to actually think about what people need from me, rather than blustering through life trying to fix everything all the time. Understanding that coping strategies I learnt to help me with the stress of traumatic events (such as being sent away to boarding school) could potentially last my whole life and massively affect the way I behave has been profound."

P.B.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between therapy and coaching?

Therapy looks at the past and focuses on healing old wounds. Coaching works in the present, helping you understand your patterns, change unhelpful responses, and build healthier relationships without needing to revisit everything that happened.

Can coaching help if my partner won’t join?

Yes. Relationship dynamics shift when even one person changes how they respond. Many clients begin alone and notice improvements long before their partner takes part.

Do you work with both individuals and couples?

Yes. Some people prefer to start individually, and others come as a couple. We can adapt sessions to whatever feels most supportive for you.

How does boarding school trauma affect adult life?

Early separation often leads to over-independence, emotional distance, anxiety, or struggles with trust and closeness. Coaching helps you understand these patterns and learn healthier ways to connect.

What can I expect from the first session?

We talk about what you’re finding difficult, what you want to change, and what’s getting in the way. You’ll leave with clarity, insight, and one or two tools you can use straight away.

Is coaching suitable if I’m already in therapy?

Often, yes. Many clients use coaching alongside therapy when they want practical, relationship-focused tools or support with communication and emotional regulation.

Contact me and stay in touch

Email: hello@sorrelpindar.co.uk


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