ABSTRACT
Child psychoanalyst Parents describe a mother's pregnancy and sibling's birth as "average, expectable events" which disturb the existing equilibrium for the older child, but do so only temporarily; in a healthy environment a new equilibrium is then established and the experience is not traumatic. This chapter examines the reasons why in some cases "average, expectable events" become traumatic and how their influence appears in adults. When a baby enters the family circle, she enters both the physical and the psychological territory of the older sibling, causing a change and imposing a sense of object loss in the older child's existing frame of reference. The child's age, her developmental status, the nature of the parent — child relationship, and certain cultural influences determine how she will experience, "interpret," and internalize the mother's pregnancy and the intrusion of a new baby into her physical and psychic space.
