Many psychotherapists concur that exceptional work can be accomplished when a patient reaches out for help during a critical phase. My patient “Sheila” telephoned me in a distraught state, saying that her twenty-one-year-old fraternal twin sons had just informed her that they recently got the same tattoo to celebrate their twin bond. Of course, people have varied opinions about their children becoming tattooed, and Sheila had profound judgmental feelings about this sort of thing. She explained that she had very […]

Many twins who reach out to me for guidance struggle with anxiety about not feeling self-reliant. They realize that this conundrum relates significantly to growing up with a twin whom they relied upon to feel secure, soothed, loved, and protected. Most have an intellectual understanding about these circumstances. They realize that their twin attachment constitutes their primary emotional security throughout their lives. Yet if one twin decides to form relationships outside the twinship and no longer feels invested in his […]

My first job after I received my social work license involved working with children and their families in a medical setting. I was in my twenties, single, and inexperienced. My first psychoanalytical training program included a child-centered curriculum that involved working closely with children and their parents along with mastering countless readings about child development theories and approaches. What has stayed most poignantly with me is not the various and sundry pieces of parenting advice, which ebb and flow throughout […]

The message conveyed in the phrase “sharing is caring” teaches that considering other people’s needs and feelings instills a sense of individual well-being and generates a purposeful societal connection and contribution. In principle, I agree wholeheartedly with this concept. In fact, one of the particular satisfactions of being a psychotherapist is exactly that—the wish to help one’s patients feel cared about, understood, and supported. However, as I have written about extensively, in some twinships the burden of caring for each […]

A colleague of mine (“J”), who lost her identical twin to cancer about four years ago, shared some interesting insights after she attended a sibling grief group. She has participated in several twinless-twin groups for many years. As a professional interested in learning more about her loss, she became curious about how nontwin siblings experience and manage their grief. An important backstory is that J and her sister, like many other twin pairs, grew up without adequate maternal attention. J […]