Breaking new ground in women's psychology, an exploration of the intricacy, friction, and love in the bonds between sisters.
Relationships between women are often freighted with a rocky mix of emotions—devotion and disregard, affection and loathing, admiration and envy—leading to anguish and confusion on the playground, in the home, and in the boardroom. A woman's experience negotiating her layered feelings toward a sister shapes her psychology as forcefully as do her relationships with her parents. By exploring sisterhoods, Terri Apter reveals their key role in understanding all relationships among women. In a series of compelling interviews, Apter considers the many aspects of the sister relationship from birth through adulthood. The need to fight to differentiate oneself from a sister, as well as the protectiveness one feels for that same person, is explained by reference to extensive psychological and biological evidence. Not only women with sisters will be enlightened by this original book: The Sister Knot sheds light on all relationships between women.
a wonderful and fresh account of sisters' complex feelings, warm and funny and so helpful!
writes,
A thorough analysis of the complex relationship between sisters. Makes a good case for the differences between sister/sister, brother/sister and brother/brother bonds and conflicts. I especially like how she de-pathologizes the rivalry between siblings. Anyone who wants insight into the sister bond, and especially, I believe, parents of sisters would learn a lot from this book.
writes,
As a middle sister, I was excited to hear Apter's discussion about her book on NPR. Unfortunately, the best parts of the book were all covered by Apter in her book tour interviews, the book itself was anticlimactic.
Apter has conducted interviews with a number of sisters at various ages and stages of their lives. In the book she dissects the interviews and features tidbits to illustrate certain sibling theories well-known in the genre of psychological literature. This is all ground that has been explored before by other researchers and writers. I found the writing to be stilted and overly academic for a popular treatment of the subject matter. It would have helped for us to have a more thorough family background for the siblings quoted. As it was, Apter failed to interest me in whatever these people were saying, because I wasn't given much of a context for their comments.
I really cannot recommend this book for purchase. It would be best to get this one from the library, if you are interested in the subject matter.
