A mom in the audience at the Multiple Births Canada Conference asked me my thoughts about her eight-year-old identical twin daughters sharing a friend. She related that this triadic relationship has been strong for a number of years. The mother’s efforts to arrange separate play dates for each girl have yielded minimal results. Another mom of six-year-old identical twin girls describes similar circumstances. She contends that her daughters have made friends with one powerful girl who directs their play. Both […]
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If She Cries, I Cry
I am always moved to tears when I witness adult twins who can empathize so intensely with each other. They can be in the middle of a contentious interaction when one of them suddenly becomes teary-eyed and upset. Instantaneously, the conflict recedes and empathic resonance sets in. No words are spoken; a nonverbal behavioral change records the vulnerability and redirects the emotionality. Perhaps this intrinsic fine-tuning is the adult version of childhood twin behavior—fighting like cats and dogs over everything […]
Singletons Can Search for a Twin
I talked with a friend of mine the other day about twins and their proclivity to unconsciously replicate relationships that mimic their twin connection. My acquaintance shared an anecdote about her singleton friend who discovered that she had created and reenacted a significant twin-like attachment throughout her lengthy married life. The story involves a woman who married at a young age, devoted to supporting her husband financially and professionally. When their children were in college, the wife decided to resume […]
Identical Twins: Emotionally Worlds Apart
Our fascination with identical twins seems to continue unabated. I have been surprised by websites such as http://www.twinstrangers.com and http://findmydoppelganger.net that will help you find your doppelganger. The definition of doppelganger is someone that looks the same as another person but is not a twin; an additional meaning is a ghost identical to a living person: an apparition in the form of a double of a living person. In stark contrast to this phenomenon, actual identical twins strive to form […]
Love Me, Love Me Not
A mother of 15-year-old fraternal twin girls came to see me because she was concerned that the verbal and physical fighting between her daughters had escalated to a frightening degree. She told me that Elsa and Avery have always been close. She described Elsa as the easygoing twin who has habitually complied with and tolerated the overbearing behavior of her sister, Avery. But the girls’ attitudes and roles have shifted within the last few months. Avery has become increasingly […]