ABSTRACT
This chapter presents twins and twinning, the impact on psychoanalytic work of the existence of an actual twin, and defensive twin-ship. In working with the individual twin, the twin transference must be addressed in addition to the maternal and paternal object relationships, and the relationship to the parental couple as the creative couple. In the ordinary process of development, each twin faces a conflict between the twin-ship, with its lack of true containment provided by the other immature baby, and the relationship with mother, a mature container but one which interferes in the twin-ship. Twins often swing between two processes in an attempt to establish an untroubled twin-ship and to avoid separateness. on the one hand, they may try to establish sameness by denial of difference. On the other hand, they may create difference based on splitting and projection, to be rid of unwanted parts of the self, each twin representing different aspects of the twin-ship.
