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One of the great pleasures in reading this book was the many sibling memories it evoked in me. Perhaps it was not just the topic itself but also the straightforward
way the book is written and the author's use of both clinical and personal material. Being group-analytic and supporting a relational approach, I think that the reader is invited to co-construct the experience of the book as a parallel to the essence of the book, which is how sibling relationships are co-constructed within a family. It is a topic long overdue and the book brought back to my attention some long overdue memories!
In the Introduction we learn that the Sibling Matrix is ‘conceived as a transitional space between brothers and sisters, sustained through time in mutual memories, emotions, thoughts, phantasies or dreams - internal threads linking them to their shared roots and their sense of connectedness and belonging’ (p. 3). I do agree that the roots are shared and perhaps the belonging but, of course, each family member tends to remember things in their own way - through their individual matrix. This then is a good description of a group in which each person is free to be themselves whilst also belonging to the family group. It is this nurturing and tension that the author explores and how these experiences resonate in our relationships throughout our lives. What the book shows is the importance and power that siblings exert over each other but how overlooked that has been within the psychoanalytic community.
Both Freud and Foulkes lost sisters in the Holocaust and it may well have been the pain of such losses that moved them away from including siblings in their theoretical frameworks. However, it is perhaps even more of an issue for those of us interested in group therapy. In group analysis, the group itself is the therapist and ‘includes’ a conductor so that the conductor (analyst) is a group member, but with a special role. This means that power relations are always evolving and changing