Twins, development, and existential fear at the heart of intimacy
In this paper, I will examine the factors that affect the development of twins to show that there is a fundamental difference between the formative experiences of twins and those of singletons, and that simply treating twins as two individuals who happen to be developing at the same time misses vital information about them and the twin relationship. While the nature of the processes of development are the same as they are for single born babies, there are unique factors that affect the development for each twin of an individual sense of identity and of an experience of ownership of oneself. These additional factors contribute to creation of an indelible internal twin that becomes embedded in the psyche of each twin and in the twin relationship.
I will also include some clinical material to illustrate the dynamics at work
- The phantasy twin as a solution to loneliness:
Melanie Klein (1963) wrote of the longing for perfect understanding as “essential loneliness”, and the creation of a phantasy of having a twin to alleviate this loneliness and longing to be known and understood. The hope is that this phantasy twin would integrate split-off projections and enable the infant to find an idealised internal object, one that offers the illusion of having a perfect soulmate who will understand and love the infant unconditionally. This longed-for twin-self is a narcissistic object, created by the infant in his own image – a twin.
For twins, the phantasy twin of infancy has special relevance. Each twin baby will encounter its own sense for longing for a twin, and each will create a phantasy twin to accommodate this longing. But for each twin, as well the creation the phantasy twin in relation to mother, confusion arises as the phantasy twin is also projected into the actual, present other twin. The projection of the phantasy twin into the actual twin (together with specific twinning processes) creates a fusion of the phantasy twin and the perception of the actual twin. It is as if the actual twin has become the embodiment of the phantasy twin. Enhanced by twinning processes between the twins, this combined object will exist as an internalised psychic twin. (I will discuss this further below).
The task of differentiating the self from both mother and from the other twin is thus more complex, especially in identifying what attributes belong to whom. The creation of the psychic twin makes the processes towards development into mature adults, each with a sense of individuality and a capacity for mature relating to others, more complex than it is for singletons.
The idea of perfect at-oneness offered by a phantasy twin, without discord or judgement, is very different from the reality of being a twin. The otherness of each twin is both a safety net against being absorbed into the other, with a loss of a clear sense of self; and at the same time, it is a threat and frustration to belief that the other twin offers the longed for at-oneness and being perfectly known. The idea that twins share perfect understanding with each other is an illusion. However entangled twins may be in relation to each other, each twin is a separate, discreet individual with a personal sense of identity which will be linked with the other twin to various degrees. Excessive entanglement in the twinship will inhibit each twin from developing a clear sense of individual self, and of the possibility of really getting to know each other. In a recent Twin Therapy session, one 32-year-old twin announced with surprise and joy that she was getting to know her twin sister for the first time.
We all experience a longing to be known and understood, but this is accompanied by a fear of being known, a fear of intrusion into the privacy of the self. This will create a pull and push that is a central dynamic as we negotiate relationships, both intimate and more distant.
Twins do have a closer bond than other siblings. The thin-skinned relationship between the twins creates a greater sensitivity between them to each other, and enables the belief (for the twins and for those around them) that the twinship provides the closeness of intimate knowledge. However, not only is the understanding between them not perfect, but the apparent closeness is more likely to be based on the pseudo-intimacy of the narcissistic twinship, a fusion that binds them in what may become a stifling relationship.
In contrast to the thin emotional skin between them, the thick emotional skin that is created around the twin pair can isolate them from any feared intrusion into the twinship, whether helpful or malign. This will reinforce the twinning between them, as it creates a barrier to helpful parental intervention and limits their ability to use an external mature containment/understanding in their development.
- Dynamics of twin development:
The major sources of development that differ in twins, compared with singletons, involve both
internal dynamics:
- early sensate memories
- twinning dynamics – projective, introjective and adhesive identification between the twins
external dynamics:
- the additional complexities between mother, father, and twin 1/twin 2
- the pressures and projections from family and peer group towards the twins
- the pressures and projections from society towards the twins including the idealisation and denigration of twins and their relationship.
Twins and Developmental frames:
Traditionally we tend to view the creation of a sense of self through a series of developmental frames:
- Containing dyad with mother
- Structural organising triad with mother and father
- Siblings in lateral and peer mode, and the family group
- Social group offering a wider societal and ethical circle
For twins, the developmental process is immediately disrupted – they are born as a dyad into a group of three/four (or more).
But perhaps the idea of set of developmental sequences is not a realistic one. I think it is more helpful to consider that we have developmental input from multiple sources all the time, each source having particular characteristics and valences. The various developmental inputs contribute to the most formative experiences of the self and they will evolve around both innate developmental tendencies and the multifaceted nature of external developmental input. Each source of input will have its own value, dynamic, function and tension.
Importantly, for twins, the earliest somatic experiences are an additional factor, laying as they do, the foundation of deep, indelible, sensate, proto-mental, non-verbal memories, closely linked with the sense of the self, and inexpressible by ordinary conscious means of communication. As Sigmund Freud: (1926d, p 138) noted, “There is much more continuity between intra-uterine life and earliest experiences than the impressive caesura of the act of birth allows us to believe”.
As we navigate the various developmental modalities, we create a sense of self and otherness. We find commonality and difference to help us establish who we are in each setting. Rosine Perelberg noted (2005, in On Narcissism) that the “…encounter with the other is a precondition for the formation of the self.”
- Genes, environment and epigenetics:
Genes alone do not decide who we become and much research using twin studies has misused or ignored this fact. Twins are never identical though some twins may share a very close genetic makeup. Furthermore, the environment is never the same for any two individuals, including twins. Environment is not a stable measurable structure. Each person, each twin, each sibling, mother, father or live-in grandmother, has their own particular very personal environment within the family. The relationships between each member of the family with every other member is personal, dynamic, and while there are elements of the environment that are shared, their meaning will differ for each member of the family.
While we are each born with a particular set of genes, many environmental factors in our lives will have a profound effect on the expression of our genes and on our individual development, and this continues throughout our lives. Genes provide possibilities for development and the particular path taken will depend on the interplay of genetic factors and environmental fashioning (the study of epigenetics). MZ (so-called “identical”) twins develop from a single ovum that splits shorty after fertilisation. Each pair of MZ twins will therefore have very similar genetic structure. DZ (so-called “fraternal”) twins develop from two ova that have been fertilised at the same time and their genetic material will be more diverse. Each individual baby will develop according to which genes are activated in response to the many factors in the environment. As a result of the interplay between genetic components and environmental ones, each twin pair contains two unique individuals, each with a particular personality and experience of life.
- Societal Factors
Fascination with, idealisation and denigration of twins:
What is usually the first question an onlooker asks when confronted with two people, particularly babies, of the same age?
“Are the identical?”
The root of this question and of our fascination with twins lies both with our idealised phantasy twin of infancy, as I have discussed above; our fascination and fears relating to doubles; and the question of personal identity – our own identity. If two babies are born at the same time, more or less, to the same mother and father, into the same household and family, what paths are open to each of them?
And what paths are open to us? Who would I be now if I had made a different decision?
We feel that twins offer us another look at this.
The reactions of society to twins are based on our own individual longings and fears, and are projected onto the twin pair. As one of the sources of input, this will affect the development of twins. The twins, as doubles, create a sense of the uncanny, something both fascinating and not quite right, and they generate both fear and longing. In some societies twins are feared as the work of the devil, and may be killed at birth. In others they are idealised as gods, and treated with reverence. The denigration and the idealisation of twins are really two sides of one coin, generated by our unfiltered, un-mitigated early experiences of psychic life and death, love and loss, and projected onto twin pairs and doubles.
- Twinning processes – a look in more detail:
As I have described, the intrapsychic processes twins must face in their development are not unique to them, but are made more difficult by the fact of the actual existence of another baby right from the start. It is as if the psychic splitting processes have become embodied: there is another, same age individual who may act as a receptacle for the baby’s projections and this other being is not a mature container with a capacity to deal with the projections in a helpful way, in the way a good parent is. The other twin is a primary object but it lacks the capacities and maturity of the maternal/paternal container.
Just to clarify:
I am talking about three different twins:
- The Phantasy twin of infancy, created within the infant’s experience with an attuned mother, in order to try to recapture the at-oneness between them
- The Actual twin and the twinning processes (projective and introjective) between the twins
- The Psychic twin comprised of the narcissistic phantasy twin of infancy, and the internalised twinning processes with the other twin.
This complex Psychic Twin is an essential part of the identity of each twin and will be active in all interpersonal interactions.
So, each twin will create a psychic twin, based on two sets of processes:
- the early twinning experiences with the breast, the creation of the phantasy twin
- the processes of splitting and projection, and introjection relating to the other twin (twinning between the twins).
Using projective, introjective and adhesive identification, the other twin may come to be seen as the embodiment of the phantasy twin, and may be treated as an extension of the self. This will result in both a narcissistic and an object related aspect of each twin relationship, and the predominance of one or the other will determine the health of each of the individual twins.
As I have mentioned above, a further dimension of developmental experiences that is particular to twins is the very early, prenatal one:
In utero in the last trimester, and soon after birth, twins will experience somatic stimuli generated by the other twin – pushing, stroking, kicking, and general movement and sound. While the twins are in a state of sleep, in utero, until birth, these experiences would create memory traces that are recorded at a proto-mental, preverbal and visceral level.
In addition to the in-utero environment, twins share experiences in growing up together, as the usual of dyadic/triadic relationships are disrupted. There are always two babies. Mother will always have both twins in mind, even if one is elsewhere. They will always have to share mother and father, and all of them will have the other twin in mind at all times. This will affect all aspects of their development, including language.
Through all this, twins have to negotiate a personal and private space for each of them within the twin relationship. The twinning processes between all twins intensify the relationship between them, and create a distinct tension between them, and for each twin, as they each move towards individuation/developing a sense of separateness, with a pull back to an enmeshed twinship that may become intractable and at times toxic/parasitic (Athanassiou, C, 1986).
The nature of projective and introjective identifications between the twins would be affected by the current status of the twin relationship.
- In the early stages where there are likely to be a predominance of narcissistic object relations between them, the identifications between them would be influenced by the unconscious proto-mental experiences and processes, and both the projections and introjections would tend to be of a narcissistic kind – intrusive rather than communicative. As such, the aim would be either to get rid the hated aspects of the self or experience into the other twin, or to appropriate the desirable qualities of the other twin. They would also each try to regulate internal and relational tensions between them to maintain their equilibrium.
- Where a more mature relationship between the twins has been established, each twin would be able to relate to the other twin in a more mature manner, and the projective and introjective processes would be concerned more with communication between them.
Thus, we see the valency of discovery as they mature, as opposed to the valency of control in the more immature interaction between them. This is reflected in working with twin pairs.
To sum up, as a result of the twinning processes between the twins, the twin relationship is closer and more entangled than other sibling relationships. Splitting and projection between the twins creates a primitive enmeshed matrix, a relationship in which the narcissistic elements can proliferate. These influences emanate both from within the twins themselves, between the twins, and for each in the perception of the self; and, also, from all those around them. The twinning processes will create an indelible core at the heart of the twin relationship, one that will affect all the relationships in which each twin is engaged.
Twins do share a deep and particular bond. An understanding of the twinning processes and the early experiences of twins is central to understanding their particular development and how this will impact on all their relationships and in the transference relationship with a psychotherapist.
The Nature of twin relationship:
Twin relationships may be companionable or narcissistic, or usually a mixture of both. There are the ‘special’ aspects of the relationship between twins like the healthy unparalleled closeness and companionship between them. The nature of the twin relationship will depend on the degree of individual development in each twin vs the degree of narcissistic entanglement in the twin pair, and within each of the twins.
The more narcissistic elements of the twinship originate in the psychic splitting processes, and may result in the idealisation of the twin relationship at the expense of individuation. In a more narcissistic relationship, the twins are more enmeshed with each other, and would view the other twin as an integral part of the self. In a more companionable set of twins, they would view each other as separate individuals and would be able to relate to each other in a way that recognises the other twin as a separate and discreet person.
The achievement of a more object-related twinship involves relinquishing and mourning the idealised phantasy twin of infancy, as it comes to be recognised for what it is. Mourning the loss of the phantasy twin allows development towards a companionable type of relationship with the actual twin, a relationship in which separateness and individuality in the twin pair can be achieved. The loss will involve changes in aspects of the internal psychic twin as the projected phantasy twin is relinquished. The loss will be experienced as significant, and may at times feel psychically life-threatening. Where this process of mourning fails, the twins may remain in an enmeshed twinship in which each twin feels dependent on the other twin not only for identity, but even for psychic survival. In this sort of enmeshed twinship the twins feel trapped, suffocated in a deadly tangle, the other twin being experienced as necessary for providing a sense of integrity of the self.
Mourning the lost phantasy twin involves living with the pain of loss in order to do genuine psychological work with it. The loss can then be symbolized through a process of “dreaming”. (Bion, quoted by Ogden, 2005).
In contrast, evading the pain of loss and mourning leads to a psychotic state of mind where reality is not acknowledged. If the object is not relinquished and mourned, the internal objects remain in a fused state in which “…pathological bonds of love mixed with hate are among the strongest ties that bind internal objects to one another in a state of mutual captivity” (Ogden, 2005, p 43/4). This leaves the person unable to “dream” himself into existence as an individual, unable to create a personal narrative of the experience, or “truthful archival fictions” (‘Grotstein, 2007). For twins, this leaves them trapped in a narcissistic bubble.
The narcissistic entanglement in which some twins are caught, is a psychic retreat (Steiner, 1993). It provides apparent shelter from a hostile invasive world, but traps the twins in a bound immature state of mind. Emerging from the psychic retreat will be a painful process. It is vital that twins have space to be individuals within the twin relationship, and neither lose themselves in the twinship, nor deny its importance to them.
Much has been written about the devastating experience of losing a twin. Whether this is through distance, development or death, the experience of loss may leave a profound sense of loneliness that is visceral, persistent and extreme. It is not just the loss of the other twin per se that is the precipitant of this gutting loneliness. It is as if a part of the self has been lost. This loss would be compounded of several factors: the loss of the projected phantasy twin of infancy; of the projected aspects of the self which were lodged in the other twin as the embodiment of the phantasy twin; of the close narcissistic connections with the other twin; and of the loss of a lifelong companion. The experience of such a devastating sense of loss may become encapsulated and will feel persistent, unreachable and leave the remaining twin in a lifelong state of non-being, as we see in some of the accounts about lost twins.
Clinical Account:
Both the nature of twin relationship and our view of it affects our clinical work with twin patients.
I will describe my work with a twin at the point where she was separating from her psychic twin, and finding herself as an individual within the twin relationship. She had always been very closely identified with her twin sister, and the psychotherapy revealed the parasitic seesaw between them. If my patient showed any sense of improvement in her sense of herself as an individual, her twin became ill and in fear if dying. It was clear that the pair were bound in a very enmeshed toxic relationship, where each felt a psychic dependency on the other. In this state of psychic fusion, any move to separateness immediately generated a fear of loss of self, a terror of psychic annihilation, and even death. Sheerin (1991) wrote of his work with a twin patient where the psychotherapy had to be terminated because of the serious decline of the twin not in therapy.
Descent into the void of fragmentation
I had seen Miss D for several years through various stages of analytic engagement including having been experienced in the transference by her as an “identical” twin”. Issues that arose involved, for example, whether we were wearing we the same skirt. At other times she was insistent that I knew exactly what she was thinking, even when she was silent.
We had done a lot of work and Miss D was beginning to be able to tolerate difference and separateness not only from me, but also from her twin sister. This was met with both relief and fear – relief at being separate from her very ill twin sister, but also the fear of what it meant to be a person in her own right. Her twin sister did not share the relief, and at times became very ill. She told me she had been an unexpected baby, and was very ill after birth. She was not named for 6 weeks, and she felt she was always regarded as her twin sister’s shadow.
I had had to move consulting rooms for a period of time, and the sessions I will describe took place in the new rooms. I had taken care to maintain as much continuity as I could. One major difference was that my desk and computer were in a “study-corner” of the new consulting room, whereas they had previously been located in a room private to me, not seen by my patients.
When I went to meet Miss D in the waiting room, I found her standing with her back glued to the wall, facing the window, staring at a picture on the wall next to the window. She looked terrified. As she walked into the consulting room, she became extremely disturbed by the presence of the computer. In an earlier publication (Lewin 1994) I explored how Miss D had associated a TV monitor with her mirroring ‘identical’ twin. In her current state of mind, it seemed to her that her twin was actually present in the room. She said she felt compelled to sit at the desk in front of the computer, but she resisted doing so.
However, she remained staring at my computer for some time. She looked fearfully around the room and complained about the walls having ears. She said she could not sit with her back to the window (the position that the chair was in) because she felt she had to see who was there, and especially to keep the computer in view. She spent the session sitting on the floor, against the side of the couch, facing the window. She said she felt trapped as she had been in a traumatic childhood incident. She recalled that as a child when her mother was absent over an extended period, she had hidden in rooms behind a chair (as she was doing now). At that time people had come in and out of the room, unaware of her presence while she was able to see them, watch them.
Over the next few sessions, in a continuing “psychotic” state of mind, Miss D relived the pain and confusion of what she experienced as a rupture from her twin – her actual twin, her psychic twin, and her twin-analyst – and the abandonment by her mother in its many forms, from birth and through her life. In both the transference relationship and in my own lack of clear understanding at that time, Miss D experienced me as an absent mother and as a lost ‘identical’ twin, who had abandoned her to her lonely pain and un-thinkable thoughts and feelings. She walked around the consulting room, unable to sit in the chair or lie on the couch. She was extremely agitated and in a fragmented state of mind. She spoke about her psychotic twin sister whom she believed to be very mad and beyond help. I suggested that she was afraid that I would find her as un-helpable as her twin, and that there would be no hope for continuing analytic work, no hope for her to find a containing mother-analyst who could help her become herself.
I was quite taken aback by the change in Miss D. It was evident that she felt assailed by terrifying and unbearable anxieties of the kind associated with fragmentation, falling into a void, nameless dread. She seemed to have entered a psychotic mad-twin state of mind in the new consulting room (although by all accounts she continued to function adequately outside).
I was later able to understand with greater clarity the significance of what Miss D was experiencing at the point of separation from a psychic twin in a narcissistic twinship, a time of great vulnerability.
Early in the treatment, Miss D was in a narcissistic twin state of mind that she used to protect herself and her ‘identical’ psychic twin from external interference. She experienced my interventions as a sadistic attack on the twinship. As she became more able to tolerate them, she began to distinguish me as a separate person, at that stage a ‘non-identical’ twin. She found she could tolerate the sense of difference and space for being. With each movement out of the narcissistic capsule, her anxieties mounted as she accommodated her new state of being. Miss D had started to separate from a twin who had for a long time provided her with an identity within the twinship, and whom she had regarded as a physical embodiment of herself.
The dramatic change in Miss D represented a psychic move away from a thick-skinned narcissistic twin refuge, at a time when she was beginning to be ready to tolerate emerging as an individual within her own right. In emerging from the binding, destructive narcissistic twin bond, she now encountered new emotional territory that lacked the security of an adequate, personal, individual psychic skin. But as already described, these giant psychic changes generate intense anxiety at the experience of the unknown, a descent into a void of potential non-being. Miss D experienced uncontained anxieties of a psychotic kind linked with fragmentation and the loss of a sense of self as she relinquished her ‘identical’ psychic twin identity. In this thin-skinned state, she had difficulty in distinguishing inner and outer realities.
However, unlike her twin sister, she was later able to recover her fragile sense of self as she re-established her relationship with me as a container who could help her develop a capacity for thinking and processing her experiences. She could start to develop a personal narrative, a sense of self, could dream herself into being. Gradually she began to recover her ego functions within her sessions and it became evident that important psychic development had occurred. As she developed a more reliable individual psychic skin, she felt free of the imprisoning destructive narcissistic twinship and could become her own person, while also recognising her twin sister without eliminating her.
Thus, analytic work with twins is not just about the understanding of the nature of the actual twin relationship, but central to the work will be the recognition of the psychic twin that is an internal bound object and which will manifest in all its varying forms as an enduring pressure in the transference to the analyst.
The terror Miss D experienced in the process of separating from her psychic twin is also shown in the work I do with pairs of twins, where one twin will cling to the other and block all interference in this encapsulation, as if her psychic life depends on it.
This work also illustrates the various states of development in twin relationships, from very enmeshed on the one hand, to those where both the twinship and the individuality of the twin pair was acknowledged and valued. As I have described at length, there will be many factors contributing to the nature of each twin relationship. All these factors will be active in the twin relationship and in the relationship of twins with others, including the analytic pair.
Conclusion:
Twins differ fundamentally in their development from single-born babies, and that there are specific factors that affect twins in their development and maturation into adulthood. While the processes through which they develop are the same ones that singletons encounter, the specific factors that affect twins in their development complicate the picture and make their development and relationship unique. Where the twin relationship is an enmeshed one, finding separateness for each twin may generate existential fears as the twins move from fusion to intimacy in their relationship.
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Copyright: Vivienne Lewin