This original book gives a timely exploration of the importance of sibling relationships from a multi-disciplinary perspective. It presents for the first time an account of the work on brothers and sisters by Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, whose pioneering and vital work on sibling issues has not been systematically examined before. It also explores the important contributions to our understanding of siblings from developmental research, systemic therapy and attachment theory. Through infant observation and clinical work with children and young people, the book reveals the ways in which sibling relationships can be illuminated by these different perspectives. The book aims to stress the importance of multi-disciplinary thinking and to encourage further an interface between psychoanalytic thinking and other disciplines. It is a must for clinicians and other professionals working with children and families and of interest too to the general reader.

Many people grow up with at least one sibling. These siblings are often ‘fellow travellers’ through adversity or significant life events; they can act as a source of support for some children while a source of conflict for others. For these reasons, siblings are a potentially powerful influence on development and this book is one of the first of its kind to provide an overview of cutting-edge psychological research on this important relationship. Why Siblings Matter is a cornerstone text on siblinghood. Integrating findings from a 10 year longitudinal study alongside wider research, it provides a lifespan perspective examining the impact of sibling relationships on children’s development and well-being. This text situates siblings in their historical, developmental and family context, considers the influence of siblings on children’s development and adjustment, and provides an introduction to new research on siblings in diverse contexts. The authors discuss sibling relationships in varied populations such as siblings with disabilities, siblings in different cultures and siblings in non-traditional families, while also considering the practical implications of research. Covering both classical studies and new results this book offers take-home messages for promoting positive sibling interactions. It will be invaluable reading for students and researchers in developmental psychology and family studies and professionals in education, health and social work.

Sibling relationships are both patterned and diverse. This report provides an 'insider' perspective on these relationships and highlights their complexity. This book draws on research which explores the views of children in middle childhood, aged between 7 and 13. It shows that relationships varying according to context, with gender and the age hierarchy as important features.

Both short stories are fiction. No character is real. If coincidence. It is really a coincidence. Stories are detective crimes by two Barristers. Within there are funny jokes to laugh. Read on!

A Group-Analytic Exploration of the Sibling Matrix: How Siblings Shape our Lives offers a fresh approach to siblings, recognising how these relationships are embedded in the framework of the family and how sibling experiences shape our lives, influencing relationships with partners, friends and colleagues, and affecting how we take our place in groups and in society. The book is divided into three parts. Part One focuses on the sibling life cycle, exploring how these relationships shift and change throughout life according to context and circumstances. In Part Two, Parker uses clinical examples to consider how therapists working with individuals and groups might expand their thinking to incorporate the sibling matrix. The final part investigates how the sibling matrix manifests in organisational life and considers how we might develop mutuality and cooperation in our universal sibling matrix. Drawing on the author’s wealth of experience as a clinician, the book incorporates compelling personal stories and clinical examples to bring to life the realities and nuances, the good and bad, the healthy and supportive, and also the potentially damaging aspects of sibling relationships. Accessibly written, this is a rich and rewarding invitation to reflect on our own experience, whether as clinicians, researchers or as members of our own sibling matrix.

This volume provides a theoretical and empirical review of the societal and educational factors that contribute to ‘emerging adulthood’. This developmental stage occurs between adolescence and adulthood and can be regarded as a relatively new phase in research on development. The book specifically examines how these societal and educational changes have contributed to the transitory nature of emerging adulthood and the resulting consequences. Particular attention is paid to the transitory nature of this stage of life, primarily in regard to relationship dynamics. The book examines the nature of the parental relationship during emerging adulthood. It uses qualitative data from a recent phenomenological study to illustrate unique aspects of the parental relationship during this stage and discusses the findings in the context of existing empirical work. The book provides a holistic and thorough examination of emerging adulthood in general and the parental dynamics present during this stage, in particular.

Incorporating the latest research and clinical work in family dynamics, this book examines multiple angles of integrating sibling issues, which underlie issues at the core of many clinical difficulties presented by adult clients, in therapy to improve adulthood emotional and psychological well-being.

First published in 1982. Since the emergence of developmental psychology early this century, theorists and researchers have emphasized the family’s role in shaping the child’s emergent social style, personality, and cognitive competence. In so doing, however, psychologists have implicitly adopted a fairly idiosyncratic definition of the family— one that focuses almost exclusively on parents and mostly on mothers. The realization that most families contain two parents and at least two children has occurred slowly, and has brought with it recognition that children develop in the context of a diverse network of social relationships within which each person may affect every other both directly (through their interactions) and indirectly (i.e., through A ’s effect on B, who in turn influences C). The family is such a social network, itself embedded in a broader network of relations with neighbors, relatives, and social institutions. Within the family, relationships among siblings have received little attention until fairly recently. In this volume, the goal is to review the existing empirical and theoretical literature concerning the nature and importance of sibling relationships.

This new edition of the bestselling text, Nurturing Natures, provides an indispensable synthesis of the latest scientific knowledge about children’s emotional development. Integrating a wealth of both up-to-date and classical research from areas such as attachment theory, neuroscience developmental psychology and cross-cultural studies, it weaves these into an accessible enjoyable text which always keeps in mind children recognisable to academics, practitioners and parents. It unpacks the most significant influences on the developing child, including the family and social context. It looks at key developmental stages from life in the womb to the pre-school years and right up until adolescence, covering important topics such as genes and environment, trauma, neglect or resilience. It also examines how children develop language, play and memory and, new to this edition, moral and prosocial capacities. Issues of nature and nurture are addressed and the effects of different kinds of early experiences are unpicked, creating a coherent and balanced view of the developing child in context. Nurturing Natures is written by an experienced child therapist who has used a wide array of research from different disciplines to create a highly readable and scientifically trustworthy text. This book should be essential reading for childcare students, for teachers, social workers, health visitors, early years practitioners and those training or working in child counselling, psychiatry and mental health. Full of fascinating findings, it provides answers to many of the questions people really want to ask about the human journey from conception into adulthood. .

V.1. Children and parenting. v.2. Biology and ecology of parenting. v.3. Status and social conditions of parenting. v.4. Applied and practical parenting.