This book concentrates upon families where there is more than one child. It distinguishes between a sibling transference and a parent/child transference and illustrates the interweaving of the developmental strands between the two types of transference.

Siblings play an integral and essential part in our psychic development. Traditionally in psychoanalytic thinking, sibling relationships are regarded as secondary in developmental importance to the relationships with the parents. The authors in this book challenge this view and explore the impact of sibling relationships on internal psychic structures, family and social relationships. They suggest that siblings play a primary part in psychic development, even for an only child, and that infants are born with an expectation of siblings, an innate pre-conception similar to those relating to the breast and parental couple. Through infant observations and psychoanalytic treatment, the authors in this book examine sibling relationships from the most profoundly close, as in conjoined twins, through other twin and sibling relationships and deliberate on the wider context of social and tribal brotherhood and sisterhood.

Working with Survivor Siblings in Psychoanalysis: Ability and Disability in Clinical Process explores a previously neglected area in the field of psychoanalysis, addressing undertheorized concepts on siblings, disabilities and psychic survivorship, and broadening our conceptualization of the enduring effects of lateral relations on human development. What happens to a person’s sense of self both personally and professionally when they grow up alongside a severely disabled sibling? Through a series of qualitative interviews held between the author and a sample of psychoanalysts, this book examines both the unconscious experience and the interpersonal field of survivor siblings. Through a trauma-informed contemporary psychoanalytic lens, Dobrich combines data analysis, theory-building, memoir, and clinical storytelling to explore and explicate the impact of lateral survivorship on the clinical moment, making room for a contemporary and nuanced appreciation of siblings in psychoanalysis. Working with Survivor Siblings in Psychoanalysis: Ability and Disability in Clinical Process, will be of immense interest and value to psychoanalysts and other mental health professionals, and for all therapists who work with and treat patients that are themselves survivor siblings. Uniquely integrating both academic and memoir writing, this book will also engage those building theory around the implications of the analyst’s subjectivity on clinical processes.

For this volume, the author has brought together a group of distinguished writers to explore a wide range of issues affecting sibling relationships. This exciting collection of papers addresses a long neglected subject in psychoanalytic thinking. Since Sigmund Freud, psychoanalytic attention has focused firmly on the Oedipal triangle and as a consequence sibling relationships have languished in virtual oblivion. In recent years the importance of siblings has started to be investigated but we are still at the beginning of formulating theory on this subject. This book raises fascinating issues for therapists who are forging new forms of thought on the interplay of sibling relationships.Contributors: Leonore Davidoff; R.D. Hinshelwood; Vivienne Lewin; Juliet Mitchell; Elspeth Morley; Estelle Roith; Margaret Rustin; Michael Rustin; Jennifer Silverstone; Harriet Thistlethwaite; and Gary Winship.

This book explores the interpersonal world of sibling relationships, explaining how these relationships are central to the development of the psyche of the individual, of the group, of society and of the organisation. Sibling Relations and the Horizontal Axis in Theory and Practice considers four key areas: sibling relations, sibling trauma, the law of the mother and the horizontal axis. The contributors journey through examples from the psychological, philosophical, organisational, social and cultural realms, giving a new perspective on the psychic world and the importance of sibling relationships as an empowering and therapeutic component for building relationships. While we are used to looking at the individual, the group and at society through the vertical, hierarchical relationship that results from parent-child relationships, this book discusses and reveals the impact of the horizontal axis. Sibling Relations and the Horizontal Axis in Theory and Practice will be important reading for psychoanalysts, group analysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in practice and in training.

Sibling relationships and rivalry are as old as recorded history. This analysis explores that ambivalence between siblings casts its shadow throughout people's lifetimes and affects their choices of mates, relationships with their own children, and aversions to others.

This book explores the interpersonal world of sibling relationships, explaining how these relationships are central to the development of the psyche of the individual, of the group, of society and of the organisation. Sibling Relations and the Horizontal Axis in Theory and Practice considers four key areas: sibling relations, sibling trauma, the law of the mother and the horizontal axis. The contributors journey through examples from the psychological, philosophical, organisational, social and cultural realms, giving a new perspective on the psychic world and the importance of sibling relationships as an empowering and therapeutic component for building relationships. While we are used to looking at the individual, the group and at society through the vertical, hierarchical relationship that results from parent–child relationships, this book discusses and reveals the impact of the horizontal axis. Sibling Relations and the Horizontal Axis in Theory and Practice will be important reading for psychoanalysts, group analysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in practice and in training.