Sibling Relationships Across The Life Span

The first book to gather studies on siblings from diverse areas of research, Sibling Relationships across the Life Span examines the course of the sibling relationship from childhood to the end of life. Author Victor Cicirelli outlines the factors that influence the sibling relationship, considering the sibling dyad alone, as well as in relation to a larger kinship. He provides information gleaned from studies of stepsiblings wherever possible. Chapter highlights include a broad framework for viewing sibling research, including the kin rather than the family network, the total life span rather than segments of it, and the development and aging of relationships; new insights into sibling interactions through the study of a family with nine adult siblings, their spouses, and their elderly parents and an integration of research on siblings in the first part of the life span (childhood and adolescence) with that on the latter part (adulthood and old age). This comprehensive volume also encompasses a discussion of methodological problems confronting the sibling researcher; cross-cultural evidence for the universality of the sibling relationship; sibling-helping relationships; and special aspects of sibling relationships, including chronic illness and disabilities, conflict, violence and abuse, incest and sexual abuse, death, and sibling therapy.

Victor G. Cicirelli presents the first comprehensive resource to examine the course of the sibling relationship-from its beginning in childhood to the end of life-and the factors which influence it. The author offers a broad theoretical framework for sibling research and discusses methodological problems confronting the sibling researcher. This work includes a hermeneutic study of the relationships of a single large family of adult siblings that provides new understandings of how adult sibling relationships are maintained.