Ebook: Siblings: Envy and Rivalry, Coexistence and Concern

This book consists of selected texts presented at the EFPP Conference in Cracow, Poland, in October 2011. It is an attempt at finding the place of sibling relationships in psychoanalytic theory and practice. Like the conference, it is in dialogue with the emerging interest in the role of siblings in the formation of the self – marked by the works of Juliet Mitchell, Prophecy Coles and others.

The texts show not only the theory but also the practice of dealing with sibling-related problems, and their impact on psychoanalytic institutions. Practitioners share their experience of working with siblings of disabled children, cancer in the family, coping with the loss of a sibling, helping families to adapt to a new baby, dealing with both the fantasy and the reality of murderousness towards siblings, and transgenerational transmission of trauma. Another field of interest is the specificity of transference – countertransference issues related to siblinghood. The findings of a preliminary research program on the impact of having “brothers and sisters in analysis" are cited. The editors also have an opportunity to draw from the knowledge of group analysts about sibling issues. In the search for mythological transmission, the biblical stories are analyzed as sources of possible insights on the nature and the working through of the powerful dynamics of sibling relationships.

The range of various vantage points from which the authors describe the sibling relationship gives an overview of the recent approach to the field of siblinghood in psychoanalysis.