Therapy with sibling(s) and why it may be beneficial 

You’ve probably heard of couples, individual, and family therapy, the latter specifically for children or teens. But maybe you haven’t heard of going to therapy with your sibling, especially as an adult. While sibling therapy is not commonly discussed, it can allow siblings to heal wounds in their relationships and those of the broader context of their family. A few reasons why you may feel drawn to therapy with a sibling might be:

You desire to feel less alone and better understand your growing-up experience.

Many of my clients share grief around their parents not being willing to pursue therapy or take accountability for their parenting; this can be incredibly disappointing and may leave you feeling alone. If you feel this way, what might it be like for your sibling to join you in therapy? This space offers the chance to process your shared and unique experiences within your family. Some of your experiences may be very similar, others radically different. It is often said that no two siblings have the same parents, meaning that your experience of your parents may drastically differ from your sibling’s due to factors like birth order and age gap, your parents’ relationship at the time, financial status, or larger family stress/hardship. What understanding might you be able to glean from hearing about the experiences of your sibling? How might they be able to help you make sense of your experience?

You want something about your relationship with your sibling to change 

This might look like this:

-A desire to develop more closeness and honesty

-A desire to confront problematic behaviors and how they impact you

-A desire to take on more or less shared responsibility within your family

If you grew up in a family that didn’t readily express feelings, or you associate expressing feelings with emotional unsafety, maybe you feel stuck on creating change in your sibling relationship. Perhaps the roles you found yourselves in growing up have led to patterns of relating that are difficult to name or shift. Therapy with your sibling can be a safe, contained space to express your hurt feelings/ needs to a sibling and for them to share and hurts or needs with you. How might this process allow you both to feel unstuck and move forward in your relationship? 

You want to heal from generational trauma and learn to relate in more helpful ways. 

If you experienced generational trauma or abuse growing up, you and your sibling may yearn to break cycles but aren’t quite sure how to do so. You may find yourselves repeating or reacting to upbringing with traumatized caregivers. Working with a sibling can shift your roles within your family system, changing existing dynamics and narratives. In sibling therapy, this may look like practicing expressing emotions with each other and learning that effective coping skills can look different for each person in the family. This will allow you both to leave behind unhelpful past family patterns such as substance abuse, overworking, secret-keeping, the scarcity mindset, etc. that you and your sibling would like to move away from.

Working through generational trauma with a sibling allows for greater change by coming together to leave a family legacy of healing for future generations. Committing together to create change and do things differently in your lives also allows the opportunity to experience reparenting alongside your sibling as you each show up for your inner children and hear their needs and wounds. What cycles do you want to break? What are you hoping will change?

Changes in your family are bringing up emotional and practical struggles.

Changes in a family structure can bring up lots of emotions. Changes may be due to:

-Parents’ divorce

-Loss of a parent

-Caring for aging parents

These come with changes and transitions that can bring up many feelings. Maybe therapy with your sibling allows you to process feelings around your parents’ divorce and the anticipated shifts in your family dynamic. If you have lost a parent, this may bring up conflicting emotions and radically shift your family dynamic. Lastly, caring for an aging parent also creates shifts in the parent-child and sibling dynamic, often emotionally and practically. What does exploring these changes with a sibling bring up for you?

Sharon Yu