In Pursuit of Sisterhood: Adult as a Resource for Combined Individual and Family Therapy

Therapists traditionally view brothers and sisters as rivalrous and self-seeking. Under carefully arranged conditions, however, siblings can learn to cooperate with each other to resolve important conflicts in family relationships. This case documents a dramatic change in the relationship between a 29-year-old woman and her father, the outcome of a three-step therapeutic intervention in which sibling dynamics were selectively used by the psychotherapist. As part of her individual therapy, the therapist first aroused the woman's discontent with her status as the neglected “baby of the family.” Next, a series of meetings were held with the woman and her three sisters that permitted resolution of their previous anger and misunderstandings, thus helping them to become a more cohesive group of sisters. The third step brought the sisters, now as allies both of the identified patient and of the therapist, into a constructive confrontation with the parents. This resulted in lasting personal change for the identified patient and improved relationships throughout the entire family.     

Sisterhood-Brotherhood is Powerful: Sibling Sub-Systems and Family Therapy

Sibling interaction is an often overlooked aspect of family functioning. Individual development and many family behavior patterns may be attributed to autonomous activities within the sibling sub-system.
A number of phenomena in which siblings have profound influence upon one another are explored. Siblings collude and align with each other, at times help each other resist the powerful vertical influences of parents. Other sibling systems serve to enmesh the youngsters even more with parents. Important sib-behavior patterns include: the death or departure of siblings; the interplay between the sibling sub-system and the parenting system; and the roles that "well" siblings play vis-à-vis their "sick" siblings during family crises. The sibling relationship is seen as a life-long process, highly influential throughout the life cycle.
Understanding of sibling sub-system structure and dynamics can lead to more flexible therapeutic interventions. Direct work with siblings provides the therapist with more options and greater leverage in producing change for all siblings, as well as for other family members.     

Gender and friendship: Why are men's best same‐sex friendships less intimate and supportive?

Despite efforts to dismiss it, the finding that men's same‐sex friendships are less intimate and supportive than women's is robust and widely documented. We tested six possible explanations for this finding: lack of parental models for friendship, emotional restraint, homophobia, masculine self‐identity, competitive strivings, and role conflicts. Of these, emotional restraint and homophobia toward gay men provided the most explanatory power for gender effects on both intimacy and support in best friendships. Masculine self‐identity mediated the relationship between gender and intimate–but not supportive–friendship; and having a same‐sex parent with close friendships mediated the relationship between gender and supportive–but not intimate–friendship. Unexpected findings about the importance of a status orientation toward friendship suggest that researchers should abandon the male‐deficit model of friendship in favor of studying the reasons why some men and women seek close same‐sex friendships.