Sibling differentiation, identity development and the lateral dimension of psychic life-jenanine

Like the challenge that structures the vertical parent-child dimension, the lateral challenge is fraught with conflict and ambivalence; its
resolution imbues psychic structure. That resolution may be accomplished through a process of differentiation, an active and unconscious process of identity development by which a
child amplifies differences with siblings and minimizes similarities. Differentiation from siblings serves to mitigate interpersonal rivalry with them and to ease internal conflict associated
with the lateral dimension.

Freud viewed sibling rivalry as both inherent to the human condition and infused with parental dynamics.
Siblings have been cast as hated rivals for the mothers breast. Moreover, the sibling has been understood as a
replacement for parents who are absent or not good enough (Bank and Kahn 1982), or as an alter ego, a wished-for
or repudiated version of the self.
Juliet Mitchell has made the bold assertion that psychic life revolves around two distinct and equally important
dimensions: the vertical parent-child dimension and the lateral sibling dimension. In her view, the lateral dimension
of relationships with siblings and their substitutes coexists with the vertical dimension of parent-child
relationships, and warrants commensurate psychoanalytic attention.
The lateral dimension, perpetuated in relationships with siblings, peers, partners, and many others throughout life,
is structured around a particular psychic challenge: to find ones unique place in a world of similar others.
According to Mitchell (2000), all children experience themselves for a time as holding a unique position as the sole
child of their parents, the center of the familial universe. Eventually, and with a shock, children realize the
presence of their siblings as rivals for their precious position as the one and only child of their parents; they feel
displaced from their presumed position in the family and no longer unique. One of Mitchells important
contributions is to postulate the universality of this experience of displacement by siblings. Because this crisis of
nonuniqueness is precipitated by a dawning of awareness, not by an actual sibling birth, it is experienced by all
children with siblings,regardless of birth order.
Moreover, the experience of displacement recurs over time. The younger sibling progressively encroaches on the
domains of the older while enjoying privileges the older has had to relinquish; the older sibling persistently
surpasses the capacities of the younger, personifying a standard the younger has not achieved. With each sibling
birth, the childs position within the family is unsettled anew. Siblings, then, are both persistent cause and constant
reminder of the original displacement.
Oedipal rivalry is a contest of loving and being loved; the child wishes to win the exclusive love of one parent and
to defeat the other. Importantly, the prototypical oedipal situation involves a triangle of love, with each person
loving both others.
In the typical resolution to the oedipal drama, children agree to wait to have what they desire, with the promise
that they will eventually be satisfied with a future substitute. To resolve sibling rivalry, by contrast, children must
relinquish their desire to recapture the treasured position from which they were displaced by their siblings. There
is no promise of eventual satisfaction, no future special love, to compensate children for the losses incurred with
relinquishing the desire for uniqueness. Indeed, childrens primary compensation for these losses is the ambivalent
companionship of their rivals.
The competition with siblings is not simply for love, but for parental recognition of the childs uniqueness and
worth with respect to similar others who share the same relationship to the parents; significantly, sibling rivals are
beside, whereas oedipal rivals are above. Parental love may provide evidence of victory, but is not victory itself.
Consequently, parental love, especially when meted out equally to siblings, may inflame rather than pacify sibling
rivalry.
Parents undoubtedly influence the intensity and character of sib ling rivalry. A parents expressed intolerance for
the childs competitive strivings toward siblings may fuel the childs guilt for wishing to defeat the rivals, perhaps
forcing competitiveness underground. Alternatively,parents differential treatment of their children may fuel
sibling rivalry. In particular, perceived or actual parental preference for one sibling over others or, worse, over a
spouse, may amplify rivalry perniciously (Sharpe and Rosenblatt 1994), fueling the guilt of the victorious sibling
and the resentment of the vanquished. But even when parents treat siblings equally, siblings tend to protest,
charging inequity. Equal treatment may be perceived as an affront to a childs desire to be recognized
as deserving of unique parental love.

In the interest of quelling rivalry and hurt feelings, some parents minimize the special talents of one sibling when
other siblings cannot compete, potentiating the childs fantasy that the sibling is harmed by . being defeated. For
instance, a patient described frustration with her mothers tendency to understate her impressive academic
accomplishments to save the feelings of her brother, a poor student. Sometimes this mother would equate the
patients excellence with her brothers mediocrity (e.g., &dquo;Ann received top honors in high school science, and
Ed passed his math test&dquo;). Because the patient loved her brother deeply,she did feel guilty about her greater
success in the realms she believed her parents valued most.
Similarly, parents may attempt to sidestep rivalry by qualifying unique sibling abilities as temporary or rolerelated rather than permanent or self-related. For instance, parents may justify greater autonomy for an older
child in terms of age rather than in terms of the childs personal qualities, potentially defusing rivalry but
frustrating the childs desire for recognition of his or her unique self.
The vertical challenge is fixed, with some individual variation, to occur between the ages of three and five years.
Kris and Ritvo (1983) elaborated the particular challenges of the first sibling birth experienced by a two-year-old.
The two types of challenge-vertical and lateral-occur together when a sibling is born during a childs oedipal
development; in that instance, the trauma of displacement may influence the process of parental identification, as
when siblings identify with different parents to mitigate rivalry with one another.
For later-born children, the lateral challenge precedes the vertical one, and the presence of siblings shapes
preoedipal development in myriad ways.
MANAGING THE LATERAL CHALLENGE WITH IDENTIFICATION
Mitchell (2003) has theorized that the crisis of nonuniqueness may be resolved as individuals accept their places in
a social series, in lateral relationships that recognize both similarity and difference, the human condition of being
&dquo;different but equal&dquo; with respect to siblings and peers (p. 128). Her presentation implies that
identification with the actual or idealized sibling may move the child toward this resolution, or may be used as a
defense against aggressive feelings toward the sibling, thus forestalling resolution.
For instance, Balsam (1988) described a young man who identified with the saintly image of the brother who
died before his birth, the angel with whom the living boy could not compete. Once the young man began to
relinquish the identification and to acknowledge his brother as a real person, separate and different from himself,
he was forced to confront feelings of rivalry, jealousy, and anger for having lived so long in the dead babys
shadow; the identification had served as a defense against these unsaintly feelings.
Alternatively, a child may use identification with the mother to manage rivalry toward a younger sibling (see Kris
and Ritvo 1983; des Rosiers 1993); the child internalizes the mothers caring attitude toward the new baby,
facilitating positive sibling interactions and a warm sibling bond.
DIFFERENTIATION FROM THE SIBLING: THE PROCESS OF BECOMING DIFFERENT
With identification, characteristics and desires of another person are adopted as ones own, resulting in sameness.
Graham (1988) attributed the &dquo;complementary roles and self-images&dquo; (p. 101) of some siblings to
incomplete individuation of one sibling from another. Sharpe and Rosenblatt (1994) understood polarized sibling
roles; as indicating unresolved oedipal sibling relationships; they theorized that opposite sibling characteristics
result when one side of the oedipal conflict with the sibling is repressed and the other is heightened by a kind
of reaction formation.
Des Rosiers (1993) noted that sisters may attempt to resolve their particularly intense conflicts over desires for an
exclusive relationship with the mother and closeness with each other through either drastic differentiation; or
intense closenessamounting to identification. Balsam (1988) presented the case of a young woman preoccupied
with her unquestioned goodness in contrast to the unmitigated badness of her younger sister; the patient had
formed every available aspect of her character in internal contrast to this hated sibling(p. 81). Balsam viewed the
internalized bad sister as the patients repudiated alter ego, the negative image of her ego ideal. Finally, the
twinning reaction; of twins and other siblings close in age (see Shopper 1974; Ainslie 1999) acknowledges the
tendency of some siblings to adopt opposite identity characteristics, identifications, desires, and roles as an attempt
to bolster fragile ego boundaries and to reduce competitive feelings.
The primary role of differentiation, is recognized to be the refinement of psychic structure based on specialization
of function (Hartmann, Kris, and Loewenstein 1946), notably the differentiation of ego and id, superego and ego,
and self and object. In addition, differentiation may be a goal of psychoanalytic treatment, as when defensive

processes such as regression result in the merger of previously separate entities because separation provokes
anxiety.
In our current theory, then, processes involving difference create psychic structures, whereas processes involving
sameness provide the content of those structures. Surprisingly, this is true also of our understanding of gender
identity development, despite the fact that theorists highlight influences of both similarity and difference with
respect to parental figures.
Differentiation as a process of identity development, I theorize, operates via four familiar mechanisms: comparison
of self and others, recognition of the actual qualities or potentials of self and siblings, projection onto the sibling of
qualities concordant with those perceived in the sibling, and amplification in oneself of discordant or opposite
qualities.
The projection and amplification mechanisms of differentiation work in tandem around a feature of the
unconscious that is well known: the unconscious unites opposites even as it strives to segregate them. For instance,
Freud (1923) envisioned the superego as both the residue of the earliest object-choices of the id and & an
energetic reaction formation against those choices.
Because qualities exist alongside their opposites in the unconscious, the presence of a quality implies the presence
of its opposite. Consequently, if a quality is projected, its opposite is available internally to be amplified.
With precious territory secured, aggressive feelings toward the sibling may subside and loving feelings emerge. But
differentiation may attenuate sibling rivalry without resolving it; because differentiation is a refusal to relinquish
ones special position to the sibling, the desire for pure victory persists unsatisfied.
Qualities Owned and Disowned
Parental comparisons of siblings to one another may plant the seeds of differentiation, as children become the
differences they hear articulated. The presence of unique sibling talents, qualities, or experiences, including
illness, handicap, and premature death, is likely to shape the differentiation process, as these qualities distinguish
realms within which the child cannot hope to compete with the sibling.
Birth order affects the differentiation process in several ways. In older siblings, amplification of their greater
capacities and maturity is an available strategy.
Indeed, many children experience a spurt of development around the birth of a sibling, suggesting differentiation;
of course, many others experience temporary regression, suggesting identification with the new baby.
Birth order also affects the timing of the awareness of siblings that precipitates the crisis of uniqueness, as
theorized by Mitchell. In firstborn children, the first such crisis occurs with the birth of the first sibling, and is
entwined with concurrent developmental challenges in the vertical dimension. For Mr. A, the birth of his brother
occurred during and infused his oedipal development; competition with his father for his mother as a libidinal
object was entwined with competition with his brother for his mother as the one to recognize his unique goodness
and worth in the world.
For later-bom children, awareness of the external world, and their place in it, coincides with their awareness of
siblings; consequently, the experience of displacement may be less powerful than it is for firstborns. The case of
Ms. B, a youngest child, demonstrates the struggle for place without a clear experience of displacement; at least
consciously,Ms. B did not experience herself as losing a favored position. ( the struggle of the younger child is to
make a niche for himself, while for the older child is to come to terms with displacement first and then in reaction
to that find a place for himself.)
Differentiation and Identification: Because differentiation involves projecting ones disowned qualities onto the
other, identification with those disowned qualities may occur. For example, Ms. Cs differentiation from her sister
masked her identification with her as the standard of perfection she wished to attain. Mr. As differentiation from
his brother potentiated his identification with his brothers struggles over both dependency and power. In the
treatment of each patient, exploration of differences between patient and sibling revealed identifications that had
been suppressed; identifications and a sense of commonality emerged as the motivated differentiations were
relinquished.
I believe that differentiation also plays a crucial and largely unacknowledged role in identity development in

the vertical dimension, yet its operation is typically obscured by identification. That is, because mother and father
are of opposite gender, the same-sex identification appears to determine, and thus masks, the cross-sex
differentiation ( which could take the form of developing complimentary attributes).
Implications for the Therapeutic Process
The clinical examples illustrate some common transference manifestations of the unique challenges and concerns
of the lateral dimension. In general, the analyst may be invited to play the part of the victorious or the defeated
sibling or self, as well as the parent whose recognition and favor are sought as evidence of the patients unique
worth. For Mr. A, I became the mother who forced him to share her with his male rivals ( thus the mother here will
be condemned and the client would be the attacker), the brother who challenged his accomplishments and
knowledge, and the mother from whom he hoped to elicit both recognition and acceptance of his rejected qualities.
( the mother is a place of solace, a healer and the client would a tamed, timid sufferer-object relations split. The
same person is viewed in different lights and the client takes on very different roles).
Although the labels vertical; and lateral suggest orthogonal axes, these dimensions of the psyche are entwined.
The vertical dimension is always partly implicated in the lateral, as parents are the original and final arbiters of
what is good and best and thus shape what children strive to be, and what they fight over.
Conversely, the lateral dimension may infuse the vertical, as when children are parentified, when siblings are also
objects of desire (see Sharpe and Rosenblatt 1994), or when differentiation among siblings drives parental
identifications. Parental transferences may reflect the vertical struggle for desire, the lateral struggle for
uniqueness.