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The author's aim is always to take an idea and show it in action in the body, to ‘embody’ it, and in this way to make the idea directly accessible. Here she looks at the idea of sibling rivalry as embodied by Cain, who ‘rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him’. Cain is understood as being in a primitive state of mind, getting rid of the younger brother who comes between him and God's love. God's preference for Abel's offering is interpreted as a projection of Cain's jealousy and his feelings of being rejected by his parents. The Bible story is seen as a myth representing the prehistory of human consciousness, with the figures standing for early stages of consciousness, in Cain's case that of the first-born child who struggles with jealousy of the new baby and the pain of partial loss of the mother.
An illustration is given from a baby observation: the toddler found the sight of her baby sister being breast-fed quite unbearable and attacked the baby's head. The mother was unable to contain the toddler's distress or manage the situation because of her own unconscious hostility towards the baby, so she increasingly punished the toddler. The little girl eventually turned her murderous attacks upon herself and became psychosomatically ill, with many neurotic symptoms.
The second illustration traces the development of a baby boy for whom the mother/breast was elusive and hostile, while his three-year-old brother was preferred. As his jealously and hatred of his brother grew, he developed devious ways of exasperating his brother until he got himself attacked. His mother invariably punished the older boy, but the younger boy's satisfaction in gaining revenge on both brother and mother was meaningless because he felt lonely and unloved, and, in consequence, started to show signs of psychological difficulties.
The final example is taken from the analysis of a woman with three children whose difficult relationship with her husband was characterised by sibling rivalry. Her