The Triadic Dimension of Twinship

Abstract

Recently the “sibling complex” has come to attract more theoretical and
clinical attention in the psychoanalytic literature. Twins seem to represent
a special case, perhaps more for the way they focus our attention on the
complexities of development. This single case study from an object relations
point of view illustrates the need to place important life circumstances in a
symbolic context, rather than taking them too literally and assuming they
play a linear causal role. The mother was a fragmented personality whose
sense of self was distributed between the twins. The patient’s development
resembled a pathological accommodation, though paradoxically his submissive
compliance was to play the role of the bad twin who was aggressive and
not compliant. Without forming a “negative transference” to the analyst, the
patient was able to work through his destructiveness in relation to me as a
helpful “twin” self-object. The analysis enabled him to reclaim his suppressed
capacity for love and caring.