By referring to a clinical example of psychoanalytic family psychotherapy, the author highlights the relevance of the hate and rivalry dynamics characterizing the sibling and family links. In particular, the author analyses the rivalry identification of the daughter with her dead elder brother, and her hate link with her younger one. The focus on the family’s common and shared psychic world allows these dimensions to be considered more in depth. The author describes a sequence of the psychotherapeutic work, also by referring to the use of dream analysis, by focusing particularly on a denial pact that characterises the family dynamics and on the interpsychic dynamics related to the replacement child. The author shows the importance of taking into account both the oedipal and the fraternal dimension in working psychoanalytically with families.
Keywords: Sibling complex, hate, envy, identification, dead sibling, family functioning.