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Analysts have for a long time been interested in identical twins as representing an "experiment in nature." Benjamin (1961), among others, was fascinated by the possibility of studying the interaction between the innate and the experiential. Twins also present material for studying the problems of differentiation, interidentification, and interdependence. But important as twinship is for personality development, we should not be carried away. Hartmann warned against attributing too much to it. Psychological twinning, after all, occurs even outside of twinship, as, for instance, in siblings close in age, or even in some old married couples.
One could, I think, compare the role of twinning in Pat's case with the disturbances shown by the six concentration camp victims described by Anna Freud and S. Dann (1951). These six children grew up in a group (like sextuplets, one could say), were interdependent and interidentified, mothered each other, and related to