Working with Survivor Siblings in Psychoanalysis

This book explores the effects of growing up with a severely disabled sibling from a relational psychoanalytic perspective. Drawing on interviews with survivor sibling analysts and extensive clinical material, it offers a new look at the impact of sibling relationships on subjective development, identity formation, and the clinical encounter.

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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.