The entombed lives – the experience of sibling abortion under China’s One-Child Policy

Abstract Drawing on the author’s own experience, this paper explores the rarely researched experience of sibling abortion under China’s One-Child Policy through a psychodynamic lens. The author uses writing as a method of inquiry to delve into the emotional impact of losing a younger brother to abortion due to the One-Child Policy and to dialogue with relevant psychodynamic literature on loss and grief. The main body of this paper consists of three separate yet interrelated sections. In the first section, drawing on the concept of The Dead Mother, the author explores the possible impact of her mother’s bereavement of a second child on the author’s emotional life in her formative years. The second section draws on psychodynamic literature on melancholia to understand how the lost life of an aborted brother is kept alive in the author’s psyche and the ambivalence this brings to the author’s psychical world. The third section is an analysis of the first two sections, constructing an understanding of the missing psychosocial elements in the first two sections. This paper gives voice to the longing and mourning brought by sibling abortion under the One-Child Policy, presenting the author’s process of trying to understand such experiences and attempt to understand the personal and the psychical under the influence of the political.