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On
the basis of the most recent literature - both theoretical and
clinical - concerned with
fraternal
in psychoanalysis, there is a growing interest in the relevant role of
archaic and
undifferentiated
aspects of the sibling complex in the family psychic functioning
(Granjon,
2003; Jaitin, 2003; Mitchell, 2003; 2013; Kancyper, 2004; Coles, 2003;
2006;
Kaës,
2008; Trapanese & Sommantico, 2008; Sommantico, 2012; 2016; 2017;
2018).
By
focusing on a particular case of psychoanalytic family psychotherapy,
I will try to
bring
to light the hate and the rivalry dynamics that characterize sibling
links, and that
affect
the family’s psychic functioning. I would like to focus on the girl’s
specific rivalry
identification
with her dead older brother - an identification that recalls some
dynamics
and
elements of the replacement child pattern (Cain & Cain, 1964;
Sabbadini, 1988;
Schwab,
2009). I will also focus on the hate link between the same girl and
her younger
brother.
In my opinion, the work on the family’s common and shared psychic
space,
arising
from dreams and the group’s associative chain (Kaës, 2015), may
help us to
understand
this family’s unconscious functioning. More generally, I will try to
show the
importance
of taking into account also the fraternal dimension - and not only the
oedipal
one
- in working psychoanalytically with families. Finally, I will adopt
the hypothesis
that
the family is organized by the individual psychic structure and
functioning, as well as
by
the family psychic structure and functioning as a group, in which we
can find the
projection
not only of mental contents and feelings, but also of the links (Palacios
&
Monserrat,
2017).
The
Ds.
I
was referred the case of the D. family by the analyst of the eldest
daughter (Claudia), with
whom
I often consult for some specific difficult cases. The analyst, in a
difficult period of the
psychoanalysis,
met her parents and recommended to them a parallel psychoanalytic
family
psychotherapy.
Claudia’s individual psychoanalysis started after her last suicide
attempt
(she
attempted
three times), that caused her permanent, albeit not disabling, but
still
evident damage
which
gives her a constant feeling of inferiority: a significant fracture of
her left arm which
prevents
her performing some movements.
Claudia’s
analyst and I discussed the complicated situation of this woman’s
family group,
deciding
to offer them parallel therapeutic work with periodical discussions,
between us,
about
the
development of the two settings. So, while Claudia continued her
individual
psychoanalysis, I
committed
myself to carrying out a parallel psychoanalytic family
psychotherapy.
The
family, that I met the week following the discussion with Claudia’s
analyst, was
composed as
follows:
Mr. and Mrs. D., respectively 51 and 52 years old, Claudia, 30 years
old, and her brother
Lucio,
27 years old. Here are some elements that emerged from the
consultation session.
Mr.
D. caused the loss of the business created by his own father. During
the session, we will
discover
that, within the bankruptcy dynamics of the family business, a central
role was
played by
the
quarrels between Mr. D. and his older brother regarding economic
interests.
Today, by his
own
decision, it is he who takes care of the house, because, he says,
“considering
my age, I will no
longer find a job… but it is also in order to help my family”.
This reversal of the traditional
mother-father
roles will be highlighted as problematic by
Claudia, who looks very
confused and upset;
in particular, Claudia’s despondency due to
her father’s presence
at home has repercussions
on her temporary eating disorders. She
explicitly says: “Yes, I’d
rather see my mother
at home, I’d rather she prepared meals, this
would be normal! None
of my friends’ father stay
at home preparing meals or doing the shopping”.
Mrs.
D., employed in a small business, seems to be very skeptical about the
usefulness of
these
meetings
which, despite everything, “were advised by Claudia’s doctor”.
On the
contrary,
Claudia
is very impressed by this “advice”, which she considers as “two
minds
taking care of us”.
I
think this shows the initial contextual transference of the family,
built on their hopes, as
well as
on
their shared fears, about the therapists’ capacity to help them (Scharff
D.E.,
1989). The mother
immediately
appeared very reluctant to talk about herself, her feelings
and what
she felt about her family
history and her own personal account, so that she is only
able to
express her concern about her
daughter’s “health” condition.
Claudia
successfully completed her BA in Biology, but has never worked stably
as a
biologist,
since
she does not feel adequate to the task. Her few and short work
experiences -
in rather
heterogeneous
fields - always turned out to be “failures” due to the employers’
supposed
“preference”
for her colleagues. For example, she will speak about her
professional
relationship with
the owner of a shop, where she had her longest work
experience, which
was very difficult because
of the presence of the owner’s eldest son. In
her opinion, the
employer was jealous of her friendship
with the boy, which led her to quit,
although the owner had
insistently asked her to stay.
As we will see, these dynamics will
turn out to be essential for
understanding the problem of Claudia
- and even of her whole
family.
Lucio,
the younger brother, is still busy with his social studies. He does
not seem too
involved in
his
family dynamics; he especially cares about stating his own autonomy
and
independence from
his
family group. He feels as if “they continually attack him”.
The
consultation session is very slow, although characterised by a feeling
of urgency. On
one
hand,
these seem to be expected to reassure parents’ worries about another
possible
suicide
attempt
by Claudia - who is absent and absorbed by pains related to her
physical
condition; and
on
the other hand, their worries about Lucio’s success in his studies.
As we
will see, the parents’
attention,
and especially the father’s one, is mainly focused on this
last
aspect.
At
the end of the consultation session, I offer them a psychoanalytic
family psychotherapy,
by
establishing
the contract - in terms of the session day and hour, and of the
necessary
presence of
members
of both generations (parents and children)1 - and the free association
and abstinence
rules.
I also encouraged the family to tell their dreams and phantasies; a
request intended as a way
to
trace the place of the objects of their shared unconscious
world.
A
family secret
During
the first session of the psychotherapy, one of the main elements
characterizing
this
complex family history and their discontent (Sommantico, 2010) has
come to light,
something
that has been a secret unknown to the children for a long time and
then
revealed
by the maternal grand-mother to Claudia, when she was 16 years old.
The
mother says that Claudia was born “one year after her first child
death2... he would
have
been the first male child, the first nephew for the whole family, as
Lucio has been
afterwards”.
In saying that, the mother looks upset. I saw Claudia very worried and
Lucio
haughty
in his armchair, because of the role of honor he plays in this session.
It
is the second time that the family can talk about this loss. After the
grand-mother
unveiled
the secret, Claudia didn’t talk about it for many years, till her
first suicide
attempt
- when she was 25 years old. It was on this occasion that Lucio also
knew about
the
existence of a dead sibling - when he was 22 years old.
The
parents have never talked about this - that we can consider as
impossible to mourn -
the
death of their “first child”. They tried to “forget”, as
stated by the mother, implicitly
“deciding”
to not make mention of it. The father says: “We were too young… if
we kept
talking
about it, maybe we would not be able to survive as a couple, as a
family”. In my
mind,
also on the basis of my countertransference feelings, I thought that
the only way to
cope
with this profound wound was to repress, maybe deny, the raw emotions
related to
this
death. At the same time I started thinking about how this pact of
silence between
parents
could have played a major role in organizing the family interpersonal
unconscious3
reciprocally inducing a specific state of mind in all family members.
But,
“after her first suicide attempt”, says the mother, “Claudia
obliged us to reopen the
wound...
maybe it is better... I don’t know...”. Looking her mother’s
emotion, Claudia
starts
telling how in her individual analysis she tried to cope with this “ghost”
that haunts
her
nightmares. This permits her to mention her “hate” towards the
dead sibling, who
occupies
a large part of her mother’s psychic space. As we will see,
mentioning her hate
towards
the dead sibling will allow Claudia to start changing her relationship
with the
other
members of the family, starting from Lucio.
During
our work, it will become more and more clear that Lucio is the heir
expected to
fulfil
those «wishful dreams of the parents which they never carried out» (Freud,
1914, p.
90)
and, more generally, he is considered as such by the whole family. He
is expected to
be
successful and the expectation is so great that he is aware of his own
difficulties in
fulfilling
it. Lucio can hardly pursue his studies - being engaged more
intellectually than
libidinally
- which nevertheless, he does not feel allowed to give up; it would
represent a
failure
inflicted on his parents as well. Although he finds neither pleasure
nor satisfaction
in
doing whatever he does, he looks proud to take the role that he has
been given by his
parents,
belittling whoever shows fragility or weakness, and above all, his
sister.
On
her side, Claudia seems to be caught in a deadly fraternal embrace (Pontalis,
2006).
She
should have been preceded by a son who, in her father’s expectations,
would have
pursued
and run the family business. Lucio was born after Claudia, so that the
parental
wishes
seem to have “skipped” her. Lucio has become their “hope,
beloved child, the
favorite
and only heir.”
Claudia
feels that, in order to be loved, she should have been that dead child;
in order to
be
successful, she should have been desired and supported as he would
have been, or like
Lucio,
as that ghost that haunts most of her dreams and nightmares; as that
child who, she
would
still like to be; she would like to fulfil the expectations and wishes
of her parents,
who
have not been able to deal with mourning their dead child (Levaque,
2013).
In
this sense, in both Lucio and in Claudia, we can clearly detect the
inner dynamics of
the
sibling link: the father’s - but more generally the parental -
expectations that pervade
the
link between siblings; and if, on one hand, Lucio has to fulfil those
expectations,
especially
disqualifying his sister, Claudia feels stuck in her position between
the two
male
siblings, Lucio, and the dead one. In this sense, both Claudia’s and
Lucio’s psychic
positions
within the family seem to support the family’s unconscious alliance.
In
Claudia’s
psychic position we might detect a sort of illustration of Kaës’s
consideration
about
the role of psychic bisexuality and narcissistic double in the archaic
form of the
sibling
complex. In this sense, we can interpret Claudia’s difficulties as
related to the
acceptance
of a stable female identity4: she feels that she should be her dead
sibling, in
order
to be loved by her mother, and more generally by her parents; at the
same time, she
feels
that she should be like Lucio, since, in her perception, their parents
are more
libidinally
focused on him. In conclusion, she feels that being a boy is the
condition to be
loved,
activating dynamics of female identity devaluation.
What
I have said so far, in particular with respect to Claudia, recalls the
observation of
René
Kaës (2008): «the psychic destiny of a sibling’s death is
entangled in the parents’
mourning
for their child... if the bereavement of the parental couple partially
affects the
mourning
process in their children, parents’ unachieved elaboration of the
mourning for
their
child entails their offspring’s difficult or impossible bereavement
for his/her alter
ego
- the dead sibling...» (p. 164). In this sense, we can consider the
death of the child as
a
traumatic event disorganizing family dynamic, on each member and on
the entire
family
in various way (Scharff J.S., 2014). In fact, as stated by Cudmore and
Judd
(2001),
«the death of a child is always a shocking event. It is a death ‘out
of season’…
upsetting
the natural life-cycle where the old are expected to die first» (p.
33).
In
my mind, I formulate more clearly the hypothesis that a pact of
silence had so far
characterised
the family intersubjective psychic world. In this sense, we can think
of
Claudia’s
symptoms, of Lucio’s study difficulties, as well as of their
specific sibling link,
as
the results of the system of unconscious interpersonal communication (Scharff
and
Scharff,
2011) - here in the form of silence/non-communication - among family
members,
that defines the functioning of their unconscious and the expression
of their
compromise
formations.
In
particular, I think of a sort of denial pact5 (Kaës, 2009; Sommantico,
2011), negating
any
possible mention of the first child’s death and Claudia’s distress,
as well as that
shared
by all the family members, linking them in an unconscious alliance. I
thought of
the
denial pact as a particular case of an unconscious alliance that did
not only concern
the
subjects’ drive motions, but also unthinkable elements of the
subjects’ and the
family’s
history. The denial pact is «an unconscious agreement imposed and
concluded
mutually
on the basis of… defensive operations so that the linking can be
organized and
maintained
in keeping with the complementary interests of each subject in the
linking
framework»
(Kaës, 2014, p. 13), creating zones of silence, of unthinkable, of
unsignifiable,
and non-transformable6. As in all unconscious agreements, the denial
pact
is
by its nature intersubjective: it belongs properly neither to the
singular subject nor to
the
family, having specific functions in the intrapsychic space, but at
the same time
sustaining
the formations and processes of the intersubjective linking. In this
kind of
unconscious
agreement, we therefore find an unconscious complicity in denying
shared
unconscious
elements. In my mind, Claudia’s symptoms represent the failure of
this
unconscious
complicity, and lead her and her family to formulate a request for
help.
In
this sense, we can extend the idea of shared unconscious phantasy (Bannister
&
Pincus,
1965), used in couple psychoanalytic psychotherapy, to that of shared
unconscious
defense. This is reminiscent of what Nicolò (2014) calls
interpersonal or
transpersonal
defenses: «These defenses are shared by family members and are used
to
cope
with unthinkable catastrophic anxieties of annihilation, guilt, and so
on» (p. 74).
These
collective products are used «to the extent that they “meet” the
need of the
participants
of the relationship» (ibidem).
In
particular, these interpersonal defences - in this case a denial pact
- illustrate the way
the
family as a whole unconsciously shares a defense against destructive
anxieties. In my
view,
this is a way of thinking about the link, following the idea that «there
is an ongoing
bond
between subjects that is built by subjects’ internal worlds while,
at the same time, it
influences
each person’s internal world» (Scharff D.E., 2011, p. 37).
Moreover,
we can suppose that unelaborated elements at the level of the parental
generation
- in particular an unaccomplished mourning work - are transmitted in
an
untreated
form to the siblings’ generation, affecting the specific
organisation of their link,
and
more profoundly to the structure of their sibling complexes. In this
sense, we can
state
that Claudia is the depository of her mother’s omnipotence, and also
the recipient of
her
family members’ sufferings, and of the unachieved mourning process
of her relatives.
Claudia
sees herself as the very rival of the idealized dead sibling and, at
the same time,
she
supports her mother’s - and more generally her parent’s -
unresolved mourning.
The
hate circulation
The
envious hatred that Claudia has experienced in relation to the “dead
little child”
slowly
emerges. And even more emerges the conflict with Lucio who - she says
- does
not
support her, but rather excludes her, for a deep sense of failure. In
this sense,
following
Sarantis Thanopoulos (2008), we should speak of the «dead
sibling as a
phantasy
figure present in the psyche of the girl and corresponding in the
psyche of the
mother
to the phantasy of a central object in the state of living death,
incarnated in a male
child
actually lost (physically o psychically) or never born, but intensely
desire» (p. 106).
In
parallel, Lucio’s implacable hatred towards Claudia also emerges.
With her suicide
attempts,
he says, with her failures and her constant demands, she tries to get
their
parents’
attention, “but she won’t make it with me. It would have been
better if she
wasn’t
born”. Lucio is continually distracted by his cellphone so
expressing his rage, also
related
to the sessions he feels compelled to attend because of his sister.
Here
we can see the reciprocal envy circulating among siblings: for both
Claudia and
Lucio
it is matter of conquering their mother’s psychic space, but more
generally their
parental
concerns and loving attentions. This whole process also entails envy
of the
other’s
position in the parental phantasy and love; and this generates the
emergence of
murderous
desires typical of the envy of the sibling-other.
As
stated by Mitchell (2003), in mirroring with the fraternal other,
occurs the realization
that
one is not unique. The traumatic dimension of this «loss of
uniqueness… equivalent
to
annihilation» (p. 43) is related to the fact that the subject loses
not only his sense of
uniqueness,
but also the mother’s unique love. This introduces the children to
the
disillusion:
the failure of the fantasy of being irreplaceable.
The
envious hatred between siblings (Trapanese, 2007), when analysed in an
intersubjective
perspective,
can be (partly) attributed to an exclusive desire which can result in
exclusion;
or, on the other hand, to an uneven distribution, an asymmetric
parental love
which
decisively contributes to structure the sibling complex (Berlfein,
2003).
Claudia
begins to question the way she adhered to this version of the story,
of her family
history.
In other words, for what reason has she taken on the place of the
absent child, of
the
“useless” child that her family group attributed to her? At this
point, we might also
want
to wonder how such a place might have been at the service of the whole
family’s
intersubjective
functioning.
Later,
Claudia has become aware of her own double strategy to be loved, to
exist, to live,
or
better, to “survive”. First of all, she has identified herself
with the dead sibling, taking
on
the place of the absent one, who has perpetually been the focus of her
mother’s desire,
where
she would like to be herself. The reference here is to the pre-Oedipal
triangle
identified
by Lacan (1938), Mother-Father-Phallus, in which the latter has to be
understood
as the phantasy object of the maternal desire with which the child
empathizes
and
in which the sibling-rival is the intruder, the competitor subject for
the infans.
Claudia
displays a rivalry identification with the sibling in order to win the
mother over,
according
to Thanopoulos’s words (2008). Similarly, André Green (2010), in
the case of
Axelle,
speaks of a relationship of rivalry and identification with the dead.
This is to say
an
identification process with who is also a lost and irreplaceable
object, linked to an
inaccessible
mother «occupied by mourning the loss of her son» (p. 106).
It
is also true that Claudia has probably felt the need to take on a
negative identity: she is
the
“useless” character, someone who could have existed or not. In
reference to these
dynamics,
Luis Kancyper (2004) speaks of imposed identification aimed at
replacing the
dead,
who becomes part of the Self: «The dead - the author says -
structurally belongs to
the
subject. Since the subject was shaped and merged with the subject ‘living-dead’,
then
the
dis-identification entails the loss of a constituent part of his or
her psychic structure»
(p.
190).
This
is an alienating and archaic identification consisting of at least two
faces: the
impossible
task of restoring the parents’ wounded narcissism, and the account
with the
subject
living-dead that contaminates as a parasite the subject. As Prophecy
Coles (2014)
writes:
«this [kind of] “secret identification” is meant to serve as a
comfort to the
bereaved
parent. It is as though the child believes it can really bring the
dead person back
into
life, through becoming the dead person. This delusion is fuelled by a
phantasy that in
becoming
the… lost sibling, the grieving parent would be restored to
happiness. Of
course,
this “secret identification” has deathly consequences for the “heroic”
child» (p.
116).
Intertwining
between life and death
We
could make the assumption, along with Michel Soulé (1990), that the
experience of
identity
confusion of the newborn child with the dead one reflects the
confusion of the
parents
about them, a confusion between life and death. And it is precisely
between life
and
death that Claudia’s heavy psychological work has developed.
At
the same time, Claudia’s work induces a similar process in Lucio,
who “finally” does
not
feel obliged to be the sole, “actual” firstborn, but can claim his
right to have his own
weaknesses,
his own fragilities, and eventually start questioning himself about
his own
choices,
as well as his own identity position. Once again, we deal with the
cold case of an
individual
position requested to support a specific family intersubjective
functioning.
An
indication of the psychological work of this family is the sequence
consisting of a
dream
of Claudia and its associations. The associative chain continued for
three or four
sessions,
all dominated by the alternation of death and life – the death of
the first child,
and
the birthdays of all the children: Lucio, Claudia, and the dead one.
Here
is the dream that Claudia reports during a session, which took place a
few days after
Lucio’s
birthday: “I am in my room with Lucio and we are a little sad...
Then Lucio goes
out,
and so I am left home alone... I think that I really don’t want to
be all alone and I
think
of jumping out of the window... but at that moment I see that it’s
the dead child
who
jumped down, not me... I’m there in front of the window watching the
scene: my
mother
is crying for the death of my brother and I think it’s me who should
have died...
she
would not be crying, or at least should would be crying a little less...”.
The
associations of the mother is to remember the story of a party that
she has organized
two
weeks before for Lucio’s birthday, informing us that, when Claudia
turned 29, she
did
not want to celebrate her birthday, although she does not specify why.
It
is the father who tells us that the whole birthday matter is related
to the dead child.
Claudia
immediately says: “The dead child would have been 30 this year... I
thought it
was
inappropriate, disrespectful... and too painful for my mother, for my
parents”.
Lucio
then speaks up, and says that he finds this crazy, since no-one had
ever thought not
to
celebrate her birthday, no-one had ever preferred him nor the dead
child over her.
This
was a very emotional moment for the family and for me. In fact, is
through an
intense
countertransference feeling, born from the impact of their link system
on my
personal
family history, that I could furnish them with a comprehension and a
contextual
holding
(Scharff D.E., 1989). It was through revisiting the loss of my brother,
and the
pain
experienced through the years coinciding with the anniversary of his
death, as well
as,
coinciding with his birthday, that I was able to receive, elaborate
and hold their
painful
feelings. These countertransference feelings experienced in this
nuclear affective
moment
(Scharff & Scharff, 1987) of the session gave me information about
the family
relationship,
and not only about the individual state of mind; consequently, my
following
interpretation
was directed to the family relational functioning, their link -
intended as «a
structure
that frames the movement of their inter-functioning» (Eiguer, 2014,
p. 28) - and
not
to the individuals’ relational patterns.
Following
Stern’s theorization, we can also read this as like a moment of
meeting (2004)
that
remodels the intersubjective field because of the affective charged
sharing. My
response
to this moment of family crisis carried my personal signature, first
of all
indicating
a necessary mourning work process. Indeed, my interpretation to the
dream
and
its associations, indicating the disruptive effect of “leaving the
dead child without a
real
common and shared psychic sepulture” - with all the connected
painful emotions,
reached
the family unconscious functioning.
So,
from the next session on, they could slowly start talking again about
the dead child,
the
dead sibling, weakening more and more the constrictive force of their
unconscious
agreement.
This
will permit them to start re-elaborating their own experience of this
trauma of their
family
past. In particular, each one of them, in his own way, but at the same
time the
family
as a whole, could start resuming the unachieved mourning work.
Final
considerations
This
sequence of psychotherapeutic work, of which I have reported the
topical moments,
then
produced a boosting effect on the family group in its complexity, and
allowed them
to
reconsider their mutual phantasy positions and thus to start the work
of re-elaboration
as
well a process of subjectivation of their complex and articulated
family history.
This
sequence also shows that, «in addition to an individual unconscious,
there also exists
a
complex and multidimensional fantasy world created by the family as a
unit… that
shares
a story, space and time, and by the links that each member builds
together with the
others»
(Nicolò, 2014, p. 72).
We
have so seen how this family failed in its «capacity to perform the
holding functions
for
its members», as well as in improving «their capacities to offer
holding of each other»
(Scharff
& Scharff, 1987, p. 62); this leading to a request for help.
Moreover,
through this clinical exemplification, within the context of a
psychoanalytic
family
psychotherapy, it is possible to see how siblings can be the
speech-bearers of what
remained
unvoiced within the family; in other words, in the dynamics of the
therapeutic
new-group7
(Granjon, 1987), they are responsible for representing a new and
different
version
of a story, which lacks structuring. The sibling links, «interlaced
in the frame of
filiation
and alliance of the parents», becomes a privileged pattern or, as
stated by Evelyn
Granjon
(2003), «the place where what is unknown, buried or repressed within
the family
becomes
actual again, and is put on the table» (p. 86). This is to say that
the aspects of the
genealogical
transmission - which have just been diffracted among the siblings (Arnaud,
2003)
- do find a place of possible new symbolisation, metabolisation and
rewriting.
In
my view, this family story also shows us the interpsychic dynamics
related to the
replacement
child (Brusset, 1987). In these situations, the mother, but more
generally the
parents,
carries out a desperate attempt to revive – through the newborn –
the lost child,
whose
image has been idealized and narcissistically invested by parents and
with which
the
subject identifies himself/herself, feeling that his/her own true
image is not invested
by
the mother or by the parents.
It
is properly this lack of drive investment by the mother that
characterises the dead
mother
complex, as well as the psychic life of the replacement child; he/she
arises, as
stated
by André Green (1983), as the mother’s polar star, an ideal
offspring who tries to
take
the place of an idealized dead; an invincible rival no longer alive,
and therefore not
and
never imperfect. In my opinion, this is strictly what Claudia and her
family
experience.
As Legorreta says, «in unresolved mourning in family members, the
dead
sibling
remains alive in phantasy and becomes a persecutory presence that
threatens to
bring
death or illness to the surviving sibling. In some cases, the sibling
lives his or her
life
trying to save himself or herself from sharing the sibling’s fate…
Guilt demands
continuous
suffering, which is often expressed in sado-masochistic dimensions of
the
sibling’s
experience» (2013, p. 194). And I think that it is in the
sado-masochistic
dimension
pervading the family intersubjective psychic space that we can
collocate and
frame
Claudia’s suicide attempts, Lucio’s school difficulties, along
with their father’s
attitude
towards his job.
In
the following months, Claudia could elaborate a new individual project,
enrolling in a
new
degree course, thinking about a job that might better suit her desires
and
expectations.
On his side, Lucio could successfully complete his studies and start a
career
in
another city with his girlfriend. The siblings as a family group
subsystem could start to
elaborate
their inner dynamic, also comparing it with, and differentiating it by
their father
sibling
rivalry connected with the bankruptcy of the family business.
In
parallel, the parents could start to look at their offspring as real
and more differentiated
subjects,
with personal desires and life projects. They could also approach, or
pursue the
mourning
work that had been interrupted for a long time. Finally, the father
could start
managing
his family business and properties, and invest their money in a new
business
adventure.
We
can see how, where the sibling envy is insufficiently contained by
inadequate
parenting
(Tessari & Saraò, 2006) - and rather absorbed elsewhere - in the
interpsychic
family
dynamics, the sibling complex can only manifest its most destructive
side «in a
de-fusion
of Eros and Thanatos, up to a very fight for survival, and then dive
into
fundamental
violence» (Joubert, 2005, p. 76). Only through the transformation of
the
archaic
form of the sibling complex in the Oedipalized one, can we observe the
passage
from
envy - characterised by a destructive drive activity based on the
disavowal of
difference
- to rivalry - which provides a perspective of differentiation and
confrontation
with
respect to the other, who is now an entire and no longer a partial
object.
We
can read this passage by referring to the differentiation that Kaës
(2008) makes
between
two different forms of the sibling complex. On one side the archaic
form, where
the
fraternal other is considered as a partial object, part of the mother’s,
or of one’s own
body.
In this form, the complex structure is dominated by undifferentiation
and confusion
of
the psychic spaces (that can evolve and transform by the intervention
of the Oedipal
dimension);
on the other side lays the Oedipalized form, characterized by the
recognition
of
the otherness and by the articulation between the Oedipal and the
fraternal.
Kaës’s
theorization is also helpful in highlighting the subject’s psychic
work necessary
for
facing the sibling dynamics, as well as in comprehending that this
psychic work
depends
also on the parents’ psychic work. In his words, it is necessary to
think that
«these
different places of psychic work (the subject, their links, the
ensemble that they
form)
are in some synergy relations, unless they don’t oppose one each
other» (2013, p.
215).
Synthetically, the psychic work of the sibling complex within the
subject «is also a
function
of the preparation, or of the non-preparation by the parents of the
coming birth,
and
of the care that they’ll take of the child/children» (ibidem).
In
this sense, if the sibling complex can be understood as «one of the unconscious
psychic
organizers
of
the link, of any link» (Kaës, 2008, p. 28) - and therefore of the
family link
as
well - it might be interesting for us to consider more in depth each
family’s specific
and
unique interconnection between the lateral and the vertical links,
between the oedipal
and
the fraternal dimension.
This
aspect can be analysed by taking into consideration the two axes of
the psychic
organization.
Firstly, the hierarchical one, which refers to both the generational
and the
Oedipal
structure. It concerns parenthood and, more specifically, the
parent-child
relationship
in its substantive function, which represents the primary container.
Secondly,
the
axis that refers to the fraternal dimension, which - since its
background is the
generation
relationship - can be thought in terms of equivalence and is
characterised by
the
ability to subdivide the set of psychic objects - individual and
shared internal sibling,
mother,
father, and family objects - as well as by its own specific
organization (Jaitin,
2006;
Saraò & Sommantico, 2006). But the fraternal question can be also
tackled
according
to two other axes: the narcissistic axis (Kancyper, 2004; Kaës, 2008)
that
concerns
the confrontation with the same, and the object axis with its
important function
of
anaclisis for individuation, and an achieved differentiation.
I
think that such a perspective provides a new interpretation of the
clinical events; in
particular,
it allows the fraternal function (Camus-Donnet, 2008) to be granted
dignity
and
to be compared with the parental function. This can be a productive
research: what,
in
the family group, passes from the intrapsychic to the intersubjective,
and how the
family
environment can enable and promote - or otherwise prevent -
individuation and
subjectivation
processes, intended as one of the main aims of a psychoanalytic family
treatment.
I
think that the passage from the intrapsychic to the intersubjective
can be highlighted
especially
through two elements: firstly, the dream’s function in the
psychoanalytic
family
setting; secondly, the function of the interpretation emerged in the
context of the
transference-countertransference
field. Indeed, we can assume that the individual’s dream
conveys
personal contents of the subject but, at the same time, of the family
group of
which
the subject is the speech-bearer (Sommantico, 2016). Moreover, the
dream told in
the
psychoanalytic family setting is addressed not only to the analyst,
but also to the
other,
«to the partner in
the interaction… So it is not only indicator of a functioning, but
it
produces it and determines it into the other and into the context»
(Nicolò, 2004, pp.
246-247).
In this sense the dream becomes a communication about the actual
functioning
of
the family and about the unconscious common and shared phantasy world
constituting
the
family’s origin. Finally, in my opinion, only an interpretation that
emerges from a
moment
of emotional sharing, from a nuclear affective moment, lived by the
analyst and
the
family in the context of the transference-countertransference field of
the therapeutic
new-group,
can start to promote a challenging in family dysfunctional dynamics.
An
interpretation
whose object is always the family’s unconscious, and aiming at
common
and
shared constructions that form the basis of the intersubjective
suffering.
Notes:
1 They will
always come together to the sessions, throughout the two years and a
half years of psychotherapy.
2 Died only
few hours after his birth.
3 As stated
by Scharff & Scharff (2011) «[t]he dynamic unconscious is
interpersonal in every dimensions. It forms in an interpersonal matrix, it is constructed as
a dynamic system of internal relationships, and it is expressed in personal choices, behaviors, and
relationships… Even though my unconscious is unique to me, paradoxically it is also shared with intimate
partners, work groups, and social groups – and I add with family members – as I engage with them in reciprocal
interactions. In this state of mutual influence, their unconscious minds and mine are constantly under
construction across the life cycle» (p. 1).
4 So, for
example, her “impossibility” to wearing skirts and taking care of
her feminine physical aspect; but also her undifferentiated feelings toward her boy and
girl friends.
5 For Kaës
(2014) «it designates an unconscious agreement imposed and concluded
mutually on the basis of… defensive operations so that the linking can be
organized and maintained in keeping with the complementary interests of each subject in the linking
framework… It creates zones of silence and, in some cases, of the unsignifiable, the non-transformable»
(p. 13).
6 Similarly,
as stated by Nicolò (2014), «these aspects that have been split-off,
dissociated, or rejected by one subject, if they remain at more primitive
non-verbalized levels, can however contribute to determine family’s functioning and organize the links that
each member co-construct with the others» (p. 74).
7 Formed by
the entire family and the psychotherapist.
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