ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the idea that there can be non-incestuous love between siblings that gives to each a support that alters their whole way of relating to others in adult life. It suggests that Anna Freud’s negative view about siblings may be linked to his own experience. Freud and Dann seem to be suggesting that sibling rivalry and attachment to an adult, go hand in hand, or, that extreme sibling/peer attachment is linked to the absence of a parental object. The chapter suggests that his oedipal theory erases the important role siblings may have in emotional development. A concept that is absent from the psychoanalytic literature is the idea of “brotherly love”. Brotherly love is associated with the idea of brotherhood: that is to say, a group of men who come together through a shared interest. Brotherly love is associated with the idea of brotherhood: that is to say, a group of men who come together through a shared interest.
