“This Bridge between Us”

Following their interest in my work on the sibling complex, the members of the Bridges Committee have invited me to participate in a new journey. On the basis of their synthesis of the key ideas of J. Mitchell and R. Kaës, they were interested to know how our respective theoretical stances on the psychic structure of the sibling complex could be compared.

This exchange, this bridge between us, is an eloquent manifestation of the positive fraternal complex driven by fantasies of fraternity and complementarity. This is in contrast to other more furtive and excommunicating fratricidal fantasies that have existed since the dawn of civilization with very damaging effects.

I will begin by dialoguing with Mitchell.

I agree with the author's theoretical position that it is important to address the two axes, the vertical Oedipal axis and the horizontal sibling axis, in order to be able to capture the complexity of the human soul. Although Freud indicated that the Oedipal complex was not the only one, he saw it as central. In fact the sibling complex presents its own structural dimension on the paradoxical dynamics of the double. Both complexes complement and supplement each other, and neither exists without the other.

I also agree that the sibling complex has been scarcely studied. It is somewhat like the Cinderella of the psychoanalytic theoretical framework.

J. Mitchell's most important themes are the law of the mother and the concept of seriality These important issues could have certain connections with some of the ideas that I developed in my writings around the unicato and the parental complex—a Freudian concept in which the three dynamics converge: Oedipal, narcissistic, and fraternal.