This response to Koshkarian and Larralde first clarifies the term “kinship object” placing it within its cultural and psychoanalytic context, then offers an alternative theoretical conceptualization based on the developmental achievement of the internalized good object as a necessary prerequisite for the experience of kinship. The response then connects the idea of kinship to the thinking of Searles and his work on the nonhuman environment. These themes emphasize the importance of the unconscious, its centrality to the psychoanalytic project, and our responsibility as psychoanalysts to bring the dark undercurrents of repressed thoughts and feelings into our awareness,