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My Dearest Enemy, My Dangerous Friend

Making and Breaking Sibling Bonds

  • Price: $18.00 $16.20
  • Paperback: 376 pages
  • Published: March 2007
  • ISBN: 978-0-415-39048-4
  • Publisher: Routledge

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Stories about siblings abound in literature, drama, comedy, biography, and history. We rarely talk about our own siblings without emotion, whether with love and gratitude, or exasperation, bitterness, anger and hate. Nevertheless, the subject of what it is to be and to have a sibling is one that has been ignored by psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists.

In My Dearest Enemy, My Dangerous Friend, Dorothy Rowe presents a radically new way of thinking about siblings that unites the many apparently contradictory aspects of these complex relationships. This helps us to recognise the various experiences involved in sibling relationships as a result of the fundamental drive for survival and validation, enabling us to reach a deeper understanding of our siblings and ourselves.

If you have a sibling, or you are bringing up siblings, or, as an only child, you want to know what you’re missing, this is the book for you.

Table of Contents

Preface. Our Greatest Need: Our Greatest Fear. A Relationship Like No Other. Two Ways to Experience Existence. Competing to Be Good. Power Struggles. The Death of a Sibling. A Question of Memory. Loyalty and Betrayal. A Lifelong Relationship.

Reviews

" Written with her usual laserlike clarity and brilliant simplicity Dorothy Rowe has tackled a much neglected subject. Drawing this time on her own personal experiences as well as a rich vein of interviews of case histories this book is a revelation to anyone who has struggled with the pain and pleasure of brotherhood or sisterhood. I relished every word, and as usual after finishing Dorothy's books, the shape of my life feels clearer now than it was before. " - Tim Lott

"Part exploration, part thriller, part practical user's manual, this brilliant book reaches deep and far into a relationship that has marked nearly all of us with scars, seen and unseen. Its themes are power, pain, passion, greed, treachery, fear and the possibility of love. I found it hard to put down." – Hilary Spurling

Author Biography

Dorothy Rowe is a psychologist and author of 12 books, including the world-wide bestseller Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison. She is Australian, lives in London, and has a Big Sister.

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