Tickell, Sophia. (2024). “It is More Crowded Than That: Exploring the Impact of Sibling Experience on the Work of Psychodynamic Practitioners”. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 40, 213–233.

This article reports on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with six psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapists about their relations with their own siblings (“What was it like to be a sibling in your family?”); how sister and brother issues come up in therapy (“… how your own sibling dynamics might play out in the transference”). Or, “In what ways do you feel it might have shaped the type of therapist you have become?” There were also questions of presence of sibling issues during training and in current theory. The power of such qualitative research lies in hearing the actual voices of these therapists, and their responses were striking. Some therapists, despite years of analysis and supervision, had never thought about their own sibling experience at all. Nevertheless, all therapists felt that their own personal experience as sisters and brothers had had a profound and lasting effect on them. One therapist said that since childhood “I feel a sense of guilt. … I still find it terribly difficult to say no.” Equally dramatic was the absence of existing sibling theory, including during training. All noted that there almost nothing about siblings in their training, “a real deficit.” Yet they stated that “siblings must be pivotal.” Another therapist, during the interview itself, came to realize that her own patient’s difficulties had much to do with her broken relationship with her brother. For many, the interview itself was therapeutic. Izzy, one of the participants came to a deeper realization of the importance of siblings in her clinical work during the interview, saying: “My sister is so angry with her parents and her sisters for what happened to her…. And there’s something in me that’s thinking, ‘Put that all to one side’. That’s the effect the transference is having on me: ‘Put that all to one side and make it up, because you’ve got sisters.’ And I hadn’t thought about that until we’re sitting here.” Another therapist, despite years of analysis, only realized during her interview that she had no memories of her own sister at all. Another interviewee highlighted how strong a role siblings play in the formation of identity, saying: “With a sibling … you learn a lot about how to be different.” Some from larger families felt their own sibling experience made them more sensitive to certain issues like competitiveness or envy. The author, the middle of seven siblings, cries out for the importance of sibling dynamics for understanding our patients as well as ourselves, and for our our identity and emotional patterns. She argues convincingly that a concerted effort is needed to include sibling issues in training and through new theoretical approaches. For this, she should be lauded. On the other hand, her conclusions while forceful, are not new. Ever since the pioneering The Sibling Bond (Bank & Kahn, 1982), many authors have shown the profound neglect of sibling issues in personal analyses, in psychoanalytically-oriented theory and in the discourse about psyche and individuation. Freud and Jung were both priviledged first-borns who were rather emotionally disengaged with their own siblings. Their birth position influenced their work, unconsciously. There was no place for brothers and sisters, at least in theory. It also calls to mind how some of the classic case studies from “The Wolfman”, to “The Squiggle” seem to have deliberately suppressed sibling perspective and are written about patients as if they were only children. So this study is both encouraging, but also sad to see that brothers and sisters remain so neglected in clinical theory and clinical practice. The article does review the sparse psychoanalytical literature on siblings. Unfortunately, she overlooks the significant contributions of Jungian analysts (Abramovitch, 2014/2025; Barcellos, 2015; Newton, 2007; Schellinski, 2019; Stein, 1996). Reflecting on the absence of sisters and brothers in clinical practice and theory led me to ponder if we are not also missing some other primary relationships in our discussions about our patients and our selves. One striking absence I thought about is “friends”, who play such a crucial role in our actual lives, and yet are entirely missing in clinical discussion, at least in theory (Abramovitch, 2023). Is it not odd that we have constructed a framework for understanding psyche in depth that excludes some of the most soulful relationships of all?