Freud on brothers and sisters: a neglected topic

Abstract

This paper explores Freud's developing thought on brothers and sisters, and their importance in his psychoanalytical writings and clinical work. Freud's work on sibling psychology has been seriously undervalued. This paper aims to give due recognition to Freud's work in this area.

Children’s affectionate and assertive attitudes towards their parents: the Oedipus complex or parent–offspring conflict?

“…Third, the family was living in a single rented room, and they moved to Leipzig and then to Vienna due to poverty (Gay, 2006). Finally, after Freud was born, the family had seven other children between 1857-1866(Sherwin-White, 2007). Freud already had three siblings between his ages of 2-5, namely in his oedipal phase.…”

Double Trouble: Sibling Rivalry and Twin Organizations in the 2008 Credit Crisis

“…In this context, the idea of twin organizations provides a new contribution. In relation to the psychoanalytic literature, this paper is innovative because it draws on the well-established theme of sibling and twin rivalry (Burlingham, 1949(Burlingham, , 1963Mitchell, 2003;Sherwin-White, 2007) and applies it at the organizational level, proposing the idea of 'twin organizations' as a new unit of analysis. Further, by examining inter-organizational relations, this paper also adds to the broad approach known as systems psychodynamics (Gould, Stapley and Stein, 2001).…”

“…A second rationale for examining these four cases is that there is by now a substantial body of information on which to base such a study, and an in-depth examination of the kind offered in this paper is made possible by the wealth of material not previously available. This paper draws on: five books (Gamble, 2009;Krugman, 2008;Shiller, 2008, Sorkin, 2009Tett, 2009) and seven scholarly articles (Arnold, 2009;Hopwood, 2009;Jain, 2009;McSweeney, 2009;Sikka, 2009;Stein, 2011Stein, , 2013 that examine the various aspects of the credit crisis; two books (Perman, 2012;Martin, 2013), two articles Robinson, 2011, 2012) and the report by the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee (2010) specifically concerned with HBOS and RBS; and two books (Acharya et al, 2011;Hagerty, 2012) and eight articles (Frame and White, 2004, 2005, 2007Koppell, 2001;Peterson, 2009;Thompson, 2009;Wallison, 2009;Wallison and Calomiris, 2009) that examine Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the report by the United States Congress House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (2009) on the two American GSEs. Some of these books and articles are based on large numbers of interviews with key players in the events examined in this paper, others are authored by insiders directly involved, while still others provide verbatim records of enquiry testimony into these events.…”

“…This paper draws specifically on three subdisciplines from within the broad area of psychoanalytic scholarship. One sub-discipline focuses on studies of sibling and, in particular, twin relationships (Burlingham, 1949(Burlingham, , 1963Colonna and Newman, 1983;Freud, 1925Freud, /1977Freud, , 1930Freud, /1985Mitchell, 2003;Sherwin-White, 2007); a second sub-discipline concerns the psychoanalytic study of narcissism (Brown, 1997;Freud, 1914Freud, /1984Freud, , 1930Freud, /1985Gabriel, 1997;Kets de Vries and Miller, 1985;Stein, 2003); while a third applies psychoanalytic theory to organizational and social phenomena (Gould, Stapley and Stein, 2001). Drawing on these sub-disciplines, the theoretical framework outlined below begins with the argument at individual level, and then moves on to explore these issues at organizational level.…”

“…These feelings are thus likely to be repressed and consigned to the unconscious mind, so that siblings are unlikely to be fully aware of how their activities are shaped by these rivalries, and unaware of why they may have such intense feelings and ambivalence about the achievements of each other. This focus on sibling rivalry has continued in subsequent psychoanalytic writings (Colonna and Newman, 1983;Mitchell, 2003;Rustin, 2009;Sherwin-White, 2007).…”