Siblings

Envy and Rivalry, Coexistence and Concern

Beata Maciejewska, Katarzyna Skrzypek, Zuzanna Stadnicka-Dmitriew, Beata Maciejewska, Katarzyna Skrzypek, Zuzanna Stadnicka-Dmitriew

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781780491813
• eBook ISBN: 9780429919213
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Geschichte & Theorie in der Psychologie

This book compiles papers presented at the European Federation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy's 2011 Conference, which attempts to find the place of sibling relationships in psychoanalytic practice. It examines the rivalry and envy between siblings, and the coexistence and concern for each other.

PART I
SIBLING: INTRUDER OR NEWCOMER

CHAPTER ONE


Sibling rivalry: psychoanalytic aspects and institutional implications

Franz Wellendorf

In the field of psychoanalysis, relatively little has been published on sibling relationships and sibling rivalry. Freud himself gave the subject only rather cursory treatment. His work in this area dealt primarily with reactions of envy and jealousy between siblings. What is the significance of the neglect of the sibling theme within psychoanalysis and what implications does this have?

The history of psychoanalysis is also a history of intense sibling rivalry. Looking back soberly on the early years of the “Wednesday Society”, the first psychoanalytical Brüderhorde (horde of brothers), Freud conceded that he had failed in “establishing among its members the friendly relations that ought to obtain between men who are all engaged upon the same difficult work” (Freud, 1914d, p. 24). He acknowledged that he had been unable to “stifle the disputes about priority” among the psychoanalytic brotherhood and that these quarrels became a source of further dissensions. Early on, attempts were made to give an institutional response to the fraternal battle and the resulting threat of division and the destruction of the substance of psychoanalysis. For Ferenczi (1911), the founding of a psychoanalytic association held the promise of a social control on “self-seeking tendencies” (p. 303). As we know, this hope went unfulfilled. Sibling rivalry is alive and well in psychoanalytical institutions today.

These battles among siblings are by no means harmless squabbles, but tend to be life-and-death struggles. I cannot provide an overview of the history of the psychoanalytic movement here, and so will give just one example. In the 1920s, driven by burning jealousies, battles arose among the secret “Committee”, in which six men from the “old guard” had gathered together around Freud. Jones, Abraham, and, to a certain degree, Eitington stood on one side of this divide, with Rank and Ferenczi on the other. The conflict grew out of questions of psychoanalytic theory and practice raised by Rank in his 1924 book, The Trauma of Birth, and by Ferenczi through his experiments with an active analytic technique—questions which later would play a major role in psychoanalysis. This subject matter itself, however, was never the sole object of these confrontations. From the outset, it was connected with intense rivalries between the psychoanalytic brothers. These conflicts make one thing clear—the brotherly struggle is a battle to the death. Jones’ great Freud biography sheds light on this. Jones, Abraham, Rank, and Ferenczi denounced each other to Freud in staggering terms and suspected each other of lies and betrayal. At the same time, Jones aimed to destroy the intellectual integrity and the identity of his opponent. He writes,

Two of the members, Rank and Ferenczi, were not able to hold out to the end. Rank in a dramatic fashion… and Ferenczi more gradually towards the end of his life, developed psychotic manifestations that revealed themselves, among other ways, in a turning away from Freud and his doctrines. The seeds of a destructive psychosis, invisible for so long, at last germinated.

(Jones, 1957, p. 47)

Also, on Ferenczi’s last days: “Then there were the delusions of Freud’s supposed hostility. Towards the end came violent paranoic and even homicidal outbursts, which were followed by a sudden death on 24 May” (Jones, 1957, p. 190).

Witnesses such as Balint, who had met with Ferenczi in the days prior to his death, insisted that he demonstrated no sign of mental aberration (Fromm, 1963).

We can observe in all of the confrontations among the “Committee” members the tendency to displace the conflicts from the horizontal level of the sibling relation to the vertical dimension of the father–son relation. As Jones writes,

I had known that Rank had suffered much in childhood from a strongly repressed hostility to his brother, and that this usually covered a similar attitude toward a father. This was now being unloaded onto me, and my dominant concern was how to protect Freud from the consequences…. For three years I lived with the fear lest Rank’s ‘brother-hostility’ regress to the deeper ‘father-hostility’ and I hoped against hope that this would not happen in Freud’s lifetime.

(Jones, 1957, p. 49)

Jones’ hypocritical formulation leads one to understand his assertion—that hate for the father lies behind Rank’s hostility—as a powerful strategic argument in the battle between the psychoanalytic brothers. A brother’s insinuation of his sibling rival’s hatred of the common father can serve as a weapon, invoking the father and his power as an ally in the conflict. This is, however, not to deny the central significance of the ambivalence toward Freud as an overpowering father figure.

The personal relationships between the members of the Brüderhorde interfered with their analytic relationships, lending additional, confusing complexity to the rivalries among the psychoanalysts. Freud, Ferenczi, and Jung mutually analysed each other’s dreams during their trip to America in 1909. Ferenczi was in analysis with Freud, Jones with Ferenczi. Freud was also the analyst of Jones’ girlfriend, Loe. I believe that the conflict was significantly heightened by this mixing of the psychoanalytic parent–child relation and the psychoanalytic sibling relation, for a blurring of these lines is a source of disquieting identity and relation disturbances. Right up to the present, psychoanalytic institutes have been a hotbed of such confusion of the parent–child dimension with that of the sibling relation. We frequently observe that the rivalry is fought out using a tactic of damning suspicion, which takes the form of “wild interpretations” of one’s opponent. Even left unarticulated, these “wild interpretations” carry the power of symbolic and sometimes also material destruction—all the more when they come cloaked in psychoanalytic terminology as expert judgements.

With regard to the mortal danger that National Socialism posed to psychoanalysis and many psychoanalysts (Brecht, Friedrich, Hermanns, Kammer, & Jülich, 1985, p. 64), I would like to remind you that the Jewish members of the German Psychoanalytic Society were pressured to leave the society in the illusory hope that it could thus be saved. The institution took the place of sibling and collegial solidarity. I wonder whether this extreme situation did not bring to light a concealed truth about psychoanalytic institutions, which is that the preservation of the institution rests on a hidden fratricide and sororicide. The internal and external adaptation necessary for the institution to persist and hold its members together is inseparable from the tacit acceptance of the elimination of disturbing individuals. In the face of the extreme threat to personal safety and to the individual’s sense of self, posed by the terror of National Socialism, the firm walls of the institution appear as indispensable protection.

This brief look at the history of the psychoanalytic movement makes visible the discrepancy between, on the one hand, the neglect of the sibling relation in theory and clinical practice and, on the other, the frequency and intensity of sibling rivalry among psychoanalysts. I would like to add here that this rivalry is by no means an exclusively male domain. To grasp the dynamic of the sibling relation in all its complexity, it would be necessary also to examine the rivalry between sisters. The conflicts in the British Psychoanalytical Society around Anna Freud and Melanie Klein might serve as an example here—conflicts that also hugely contributed to the fertilisation of theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis.

The dynamic of the sibling relation

What is specifically threatening about the sibling relation as opposed to the oedipal threat? Whereas a parent–child relation is a relation between members of different generations, with a sibling relation we are dealing with members of one and the same generation. A child’s every contact with his parents also means a confrontation across the generational boundary. The Oedipus complex encompasses the child’s experiences in attempting, in his desires and his aggressive impulses, to defy and cover up the generational divide. With the formation of the superego at the end of the Oedipus phase, this boundary becomes an element of the psychic structure. The child’s contact with his or her siblings, on the other hand, does not cross such a boundary; there are differences of age between them, but not of generation. Age differences can be of great significance in the relation of the child to his parents, for example, when they lead to preferential or discriminatory treatment, but they remain a matter of degree. In contrast, the difference in generations is fundamental and structural.

This difference has considerable consequences for the vicissitudes of instincts and the structuring of unconscious phantasies that have as their object the parents or siblings. The desiring of the mother and the murderous impulses towards the father, which underlie the oedipal conflicts, are a powerful source of anxiety and guilt. None the less, murdering the great and powerful father is so far from the young child’s reality that, on the generational divide, its oedipal desires can only be articulated and differentiated as wishes and phantasies. The child is completely dependent on its parents for material and psychic survival; oedipal love and oedipal hate exist entirely against the background of existential dependence. While Oedipus’s position is charged with conflict, his place in the constellation is also very clear. Father–mother–child: no point in the triad is conceivable without the other two. The triad is closed. It cannot exist without any one of its poles. Every person needs a father and mother.

Siblings, on the other hand, belong to the same generation. They are not as dependent on one another for their material and psychic survival as they are—each in their own right—on their parents. The principle of the sibling relation is the sequence. In contrast to the triad, the sequence is open. Siblings are not necessary. Without them, I would still exist. Conversely, this also means that the sequence can do without me. The sibling relation breeds the elemental fear that it might not matter whether or not I exist.

Closeness in the sibling relation offers special opportunities for personal development. Siblings can mutually support each other in coping with developmental challenges and crises. This includes what we can call—differentiating it from the oedipal triad—secondary triangulation. It opens a psychosocial space beyond the oedipal triad. In this space, siblings can find an access to love and hate that is less conditioned by existential dependence and, thus, allows a significant expansion of their ego. The sibling relation opens up a space in which the individual can learn to deal with rivalry productively. Living out, and deriving creative power from, rivalry is part of what it means to be an adult.

However, the existence of siblings also poses disturbing and painful questions. Behind feelings of rivalry, envy, and jealousy, an elemental narcissistic threat looms. The birth and existence of siblings is the visible evidence that my parents have other needs and wishes beyond me: not only in the sense that they devote attention and love to another child, my brother or sister, but also in that father and mother have a sexual relation with one another which is not accessible to me and which bears fruit that has a life independent of my own. Siblings are living proof of the primal scene.

In this way, siblings can be living evidence of an ever-present threat to the self. Seen from this angle, rivalry between siblings is closely connected to unconscious death wishes towards the sibling. After all, there could be no clearer difference than that I live, whereas the other is dead. The oedipal drama is marked by the threat of castration. The drama of sibling rivalry, however, is characterised by the threat of annihilation—annihilation at the hands of the other, who lays claim to the place that I occupy (see also Freud, 1917b).

The price of neglecting the sibling relation

I am convinced that neglecting the sibling relation and the inherent rivalry limits psychoanalytic understanding in both theory and practice. Here, I will look at just two areas: (1) possible consequences for analytical work with patients, and (2) the consequences for psychoanalytic institutions.

1. Although experiences with siblings come to life again in the analytic relation, many patients hardly mention their siblings and their rivalry with them in their associations, or do so only in a stereotyped way. This seems especially to be the case when they have developed a fused relation with a brother or sister, such that the ego boundaries between the siblings have remained blurred. In this case, the psychic structure with regard to the sibling relation is comparatively undifferentiated, but even when siblings do not come up in free association, they remain present in the process of transference–countertransference. If the conflicts and rivalries that characterise the horizontal level of the sibling relation are not thoroughly worked through and, furthermore, if there is no clarifying theoretical reflexion, the transference and the analyst’s countertransference reactions will not be understood and remain inaccessible. Unable to be worked with, they will constitute a hindrance to the analysis. The transference–countertransference process can then be infused with destructive sibling rivalry without this being recognised.
A lack of empathy can be an expression of a lacking openness on the part of the patient to the feelings of a sibling whom the analyst “greeted… with adverse wishes and genuine childhood jealousy” (Freud’s letter to Fliess, 3 October, 1897, in Masson, 1985, p. 268). It is important that transference and countertransference phenomena of this kind are understood as a repetition of the patient’s experiences with siblings. This is not easy,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I Sibling: Intruder or Newcomer
• Part II Growing up with A Sick or Disabled Sibling
• Part III Loss of A Sibling
• Part IV Transference and Countertransference Related to Siblinghood
• Part V Lateral vs. Vertical: The Intertwining of the Two Perspectives
• Index