“Women cannot afford the luxury of unambivalent love for their husbands. . . . When couples quarrel it is over the giving and receiving of gratitude.” These sentences, originally written by Arlie Russell Hochschild in her book, The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home, and quoted in Jennifer Senior’s book All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, caught my attention and piqued my curiosity. I am an adamant “ambivalence” advocate and have written repeatedly […]
Category Archives: Psychology
My London Trip
Recently, I had the honor of hosting a dim sum tea for three of the most distinguished twin experts in London. Collectively these three have contributed a vast body of knowledge about twin psychology in their respective books. Audrey Sandbank, editor of Twin and Triplet Psychology and author of Twins and the Family is a psychotherapist who previously worked with twins and their families. At present, she specializes in the treatment of anxiety in children and is creating an app to […]
Selective Mutism in Twins
A few weeks ago I came across a terrific article about the treatment of selective mutism in five-year-old male twins written by a prominent psychologist named Dr. Katherine K. Dahlsguard. She is the lead practitioner of the Anxiety Behaviors Clinic at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In the case described in the article, she astutely ruled out a language disorder in the twins, explaining that the boys exhibited normal language development as toddlers. Additionally, she pointed out that idioglossia—the technical term for […]
Sizing Up the Competition
Competition among siblings is integral to most families. Our natural instinct is to survive and thrive. Many twin pairs, however, have a different experience with sibling rivalry and competitiveness because of their intimate relationship. While twins fight just as much—or possibly more—than nontwin siblings, their feelings about surpassing or outdoing their twin can be conflicting and confusing. More often than not, identical twins that compete in the same sport are wholly supportive of and noncompetitive with their sibling. Often they […]
Twin Loss: Tragic and Terrifying
I have been working with a middle-aged woman whose twin brother died suddenly and unexpectedly a few years ago. It has taken her a long time to find the right therapist to help her work through her loss. She tried attending various grief groups; however, her disappointment and anger about not finding anyone who could intrinsically understand the loss as it related to the twin relationship made the process all the more difficult, painful, and prolonged. She appreciated e-mail exchanges […]