New Understandings of Twin Relationships

New Understandings of Twin Relationships takes an experience-based approach to exploring how twin attachment and estrangement are critical to understanding the push and pull of closely entwined personal relationships. Based on the research expertise of each of the authors (all identical twins in their own right), and vignettes from twins across the globe, this book describes the inner workings of the twin-world, showing how the twin-world creates experiences that are often more intense and intricately textured than those in the singleton-world. Chapters debunk myths surrounding twinship and analyze the developmental stages of the twin relationship as well as the effect of being a twin on one's mental health from different perspectives. The authors articulate how attachment, separation anxiety, loneliness, estrangement, and the subjective experience of the twin and non-twin "other" impact behavior, thinking, and feeling. Through its careful study of the many psychological challenges that twins face throughout their lifetime, this text will help psychologists, scholars, clinicians, and twins themselves attain a deeper understanding of all interpersonal relationships.

Barbara Klein, EdD, is an identical twin who has devoted her career to twin-identity development. She has written four books helping parents and twins alike deal with fighting and loneliness, and speaks nationally and internationally to twins about building more authentic relationships with their others. Stephen Hart, PhD, is an identical twin. A lifelong student of psychology, he has worked with the Sandhurst Department of Communications and Applied Behavioral Science to support their teaching of the "Understanding Self" and "Understanding Other" modules of the Reading University-accredited Postgraduate Certificate in Leadership and Strategic Studies. Jacqueline Martinez, PhD, is an identical twin. She is an associate professor at Arizona State University where she studies and teaches courses on communication, semiotics, and phenomenology. Her published work includes Phenomenology of Chicana Experience and Identity: Communication and Transformation in Praxis (2000) and Communicative Sexualities: A Communicology of Sexual Experience (2011).

Introduction; Chapter 1: Myth, Fantasy, and Realty: The Challenges Twins Face Sharing Their Early Lives and Growing Apart; Chapter 2: The Study of Twin Experience as Twins: A Phenomenological Approach; Chapter 3: Communicative Intricacies of the Twin-World and Twin-Identities; Chapter 4: Parenting: The Critical Determinant of Twin-Attachment and Mental Health in Twins; Chapter 5: Developmental Changes in Twin Relationships; Chapter 6: "Alone Without the Mirror" I: Humans, Twins, and Loneliness; Chapter 7: "Alone Without the Mirror" II: Twins, Separation, and Chronic Twin-Loneliness; Chapter 8: "In the Hall of Mirrors": Twins Living in the Non-Twin World; Chapter 9: Twin Estrangement, Significant Others, and the Relational Matrices fof the Twin-World; Chapter 10: Can Twins Be Alone in the Mirror? Psychotherapy for Twins; Conclusion; References.