I recently spoke with several twins whose relationships have been adversely affected and undermined by a lack of proper boundaries. This can be an ordinary consequence of navigating a twin connection. However, when boundaries are improperly managed, twins may have serious difficulty recognizing and eventually reconciling the importance of respecting and acknowledging separateness and space. An article from the Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy entitled “Holding the Line: Limits in Child Psychotherapy” stresses the importance of boundaries: Developmental […]
Tag Archives: relationships
Twin Travails
High school–age twins frequently contact me via my website to request help with a project or paper about twin relationships. Most of them research issues or ideas that resonate with their developmental experiences. The other day, three female sixteen-year-olds—an identical twin pair and a fraternal twin—asked for my assistance with a presentation they were preparing for a school assembly. I suggested that they discuss some of the challenges that twins encounter growing up, since most people are incredulous to learn […]
R-e-s-p-e-c-t
Twins who grew up in the role of the caretaker often struggle to not repeat that behavior in other intimate relationships. Even when a twin successfully discards this role with her sibling, she may consciously or unconsciously duplicate this behavior with friends, other family members, and significant others. An adult twin woman in her thirties, whom I will call Cherie, continually gets herself in trouble by putting the needs of her friends first. She has tremendous difficulty saying no to […]
Joined at the Hip
Understandably, some twins long for immediate intimacy because they have grown up with a constant companion. A friend of mine, an identical twin in his thirties, struggled in many relationships because of this issue. He tends to become too intimate with his boyfriends too quickly. He feels threatened and insecure if the connection is not hot and heavy from the get-go. When the relationship falls apart, he is overwhelmed by loss and grief. His big feelings, as we describe them, […]
Pedagogy or Pathology?
Following my radio interview on KQED in San Francisco, a listener wrote an email chastising me for propagating unnecessarily negative views about twin development. Moreover, my colleague Dr. Nancy Segal also expressed a similar viewpoint by stating that statistics show that twins are no more at risk for mental health issues than anyone else in the population. She, too, seemed uncomfortable about my desire to highlight adult twin challenges. While I am well aware that most twin relationships are healthy […]