ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the differences which often are not acknowledged or even recognized. The psychoanalytic, psychiatric, and clinical psychological literatures contain fewer specific references to sibling loss than might be expected; the death of a sibling, after all, is by no means rare at any time and becomes more common as one ages. Sibling death in childhood and adulthood is considered as well as the special case of the death of a twin. The importance of sibling rivalry was recognized early on in psychoanalysis but the overall tendency was to view sibling attachments largely as displacements from parental objects. The neglect of sibling relationships has emerged as an important issue in some therapeutic failures. Siblings are major contributors to a child's psychological development with implications for identity formation, elaboration of character structure, and sometimes psychopathology. The loss of a sibling is therefore a major challenge to the ego's capacity for mourning and adaptation.
