The theory of sibling trauma and the lateral dimension.

Juliet Mitchell has made an invaluable contribution to psychoanalytic developmental theory with her elucidation of sibling trauma. She suggests that this is a universal experience of the preoedipal child who becomes aware of the world of similar others through the birth of a sibling or the dawning recognition of the ubiquitous peer group. Suddenly no longer unique, the child is in dread of displacement and confronted with the loss of the special status of "the baby. " Two examples from adolescent analyses are offered to illustrate the power of the lateral dimension.juliet mitchell's contribution to psychoanalytic developmental theory has been hugely significant, not only due to her persistent focus on the role of siblings in mental life but also because she has taken the critical step toward theory making. In general, the problem of siblings constitutes the bread and butter of child clinicians, but it has never been acknowledged for its profound role in human development and psychopathology. In my experience as a child analyst and a teacher of development, I am repeatedly confronted with the power of the 'lateral dimension," the trauma attendant on the birth of the actual sibling and the shocklike experience of the multitude of similar others, the metaphoric siblings.Mitchell raises the crucial question: Why should such a pervasive phenomenon have been, from its inception, underappreciated in psychoanalytic thinking? And, luckily for psychoanalysis, she not only points out the problem but also offers an answer and a solution. She reminds us that observations without theory to crystallize them remain relevant but unintegrated. Her assertion that, like the experience of parents, the sibling experience is both infinitely variable but also invariable, and her subsequent explication of its meaning have been revolutionary despite her protestations to the contrary. Psychoanalytic theory today is not unitary, but there are no schools of thought that differ on this point; none, until Mitchell, has developed a theory of sibling trauma.Stimulated by her ideas, I too have pondered the dearth of sibling theory, which is noteworthy even in the developmental literature. In 1988, Ian Graham observed that psychoanalysis has treated siblings with the "contempt of familiarity" (p. 88). Clearly, such dismissal serves a defensive purpose, since the "fraternal complex" has been a powerful, divisive force within our field over the course of our history and the world is, tragically, full of examples of tribal conflict where the "siblings" are split into good and bad, unleashing massive destructive aggression. Moreover, the presence of the fraternal complex in all aspects of our daily work is both undeniable and unacknowledged and so suggests that there is powerful unconscious motivation in our inattention. Perhaps one reason why, beyond the rationalization of variability of the sibling experience, is that the painful and powerful affects associated with siblings may be more difficult for us to manage than our preferred formulations in our professional institutions and in our consulting rooms. It is more comfortable, as Mitchell suggests, to retreat behind the vertical formulation, where the power hierarchy and incest taboo feel secure. Indeed, the intensity of impulses directed toward siblings and triggered in the context of sibling transference and countertransference is (1) less modulated by dependency and ambivalence; (2) less subject to the incest taboo; (3) less dampened by the power differential, the original status hierarchy, and the typical anxieties of childhood; and (4) therefore, more brutal and violent than the vertical dimension. The lateral dimension is of course inevitably woven into the vertical one, and the number of triangular dynamics is infinite. To again quote Graham:The sibling is both a developmental companion and a transferential shaper. This shifts the model of the patient's internal psychic organization from a single planetary one that has the primary parental objects at the center and the sibling objects in orbit around them to that of a miniature universe of great complexity. …