A father of twins raised a poignant dilemma during one of my presentations. He feels terribly uncomfortable praising one twin for his special talent and not being able to do the same for his other son. Specifically, he is uncomfortable complimenting one son’s musical skills because his brother does not demonstrate the same proficiency. He feels guilty and unclear about treating each one differently. That this dad equates praising one son as diminishing the other illustrates how much this father […]
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Pathological Accommodation
When I first read about a psychological process called pathological accommodation during my psychoanalytic training, I was struck by how it might also be useful in understanding some aspects of twin relationships. The concept originated out of the work of psychoanalyst Dr. Bernard Brandchaft. Dr. Shelley Doctors, another prominent psychoanalyst, describes how to understand this dynamic in terms of the mother-infant dyad: A person, likely from infancy onward, learns essentially to erase him- or herself in order to have a […]
Defeat or Differentiation
We often hear about twins who cocreate thriving businesses together. The Property Brothers, for instance, are a prosperous twin brand that capitalizes on their twinship to promote lucrative television and real-estate deals. The Olsen twins launched a successful fashion line in their adulthood, making the most of their notoriety as television and movie stars in their younger years. Many other twin pairs have launched productive careers together as artists, writers, businessmen and -women, and athletes. Twin pairs who are unable […]
Taking Preemptive Action to Preserve the Twin Bond
Parents, relatives, friends, and teachers all marvel at the empathic connection that many twin pairs exhibit. Even though they do fight and have intense moments of sibling rivalry, they often instantly rebound from conflict and turmoil by themselves. Play is resumed as if nothing happened. Their “twin synergy” enables the pairs to stay connected and engaged, ready to resume their regulating reciprocity. However, as twins get older, their families begin to discern some changes in this seamless overaccommodating behavior. While […]
Finding Space to Cultivate Mutual Respect
The young woman who wrote this essay chooses to remain anonymous. I deeply appreciate her willingness to share her emotional journey through a painful yet poignant separation from her identical twin sister. Then and Now: A Personal Essay on Coping with Twin Estrangement Long ago, my identical twin sister and I began to assume opposing posts. One donned blue, the other pink. One was a bookworm, the other seemed to educate herself out of her own inner brilliance. Yet we […]