Barbara Klein, Ed.D.

Saturday I spoke at a meeting in Washington, D.C. to a group of mental health professionals about my ideas of how to work with twins in therapy. This thoughtful group of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and psychoanalysts listened carefully to my ideas, which are covered in detail in my new book, ALONE IN THE MIRROR.

My sense of this distinguished and and experienced audience was that some members understood what I was trying to convey about the need of a twin to recreate the twinship with the therapist. Other members were unable to grasp the idea about the profound nature of the twin bond and asked questions that seemed to reflect their “outsider” understanding. For example, they asked questions about how you should separate twins, which is a very difficult question to answer because it really depends on so many different life circumstances. Also, they were interested in why one twin was gay and the other was not. This question is not important to twins who I have spoken with and seems to pertain to an outsider looking in curiosity rather than a true interest in working with twins in therapy.

There was one story presented by an older and experienced psychoanalyst about a twin she had worked with. She explained that one twin was emotionally distraught and hospitalized while the other twin was fine. When the sick twin was let out of the hospital the seemingly well twin had to be hospitalized for depression. Finally, both twins were out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, the twin who was hospitalized last then committed suicide.

Another comment which I really enjoyed, perhaps the comment I enjoyed the best was from a doctor who said, "You are saying that when we are seeing one twin in our office we actually have the other twin present." I said, “That is really accurate.” Actually, I have to admit that I have called a twin by his brother's name. Maybe this is because the shadow of the twin is in my mind.