In October 1953, 3 year and ten month-old Robin Bush died of leukemia. Her older brother, George W., was age seven years, three months. Younger brother Jeb, was eight months old. The childhood death of a sibling is a situation fraught with psychological danger, primarily because of the large developmental forces operating during childhood that shape us for the rest of our lives. When something like this happens, everything for health or ill-health, depends on the particular circumstances and the way in which the grief is processed within the family.
This is a tricky thing to talk about sensitively and compassionately. The death of a child, especially from a childhood cancer, is a profound human tragedy. It is, unfortunately, not a rare occurance. I believe we all know people who have suffered this tragedy.
In October 1953, 3 year and ten month-old Robin Bush died of leukemia. Her older brother, George W., was age seven years, three months. Younger brother Jeb, was eight months old. The childhood death of a sibling is a situation fraught with psychological danger, primarily because of the large developmental forces operating during childhood that shape us for the rest of our lives. When something like this happens, everything for health or ill-health, depends on the particular circumstances and the way in which the grief is processed within the family.
We pick up the story from Bush on the Couch:
"Critically, however, young George W. was never informed of the reason for the sudden absences (of both parents and his sister who off on a series of extended trips to East Coast hospitals); unaware that his sister was ill, he was simply told not to play with the girl, to whom he had grown quite close, on her occasional visits home. Robin died in New York in October 1953; her parents spent the next day golfing in Rye, attending a small memorial service the following day before flying back to Texas. George learned of his sister's illness only after her death, when his parents returned to Texas, where the family remained while the child's body was buried in a Connecticut family plot. There was no funeral." (p. 3)
I think the story speaks for itself. I want you to pause long enough to think about what this does to a seven year-old kid (it helps if you think of actual seven year-olds that you know).
This is how psychoanalyst Justin A. Frank interprets the impact on George W:
"The death of a young sibling is inevitably the defining moment in the life of a child. In the case of young George W., the tragic blow to the family was perhaps matched in its impact on the boy's development by the family's response to it (which was non-response), which was feul to the psychological fire that raged unnoticed in the child's undeveloped psych...As the Bushes' first-born child, young George would inevitably have harbored resentment toward Robin for taking his mother away from him; when the child's illness led to absences that took his mother away, the resentment would have grown stronger--and stronger still in the face of his mother's grief after Robin's death. If George's feeling were never addressed (and they never were), his natural animosity toward his sister would have remained unresolved; he would have been left with a host of forbidden feelings that were too threatening to acknowledge, only furthering the process of splitting and projecting unwanted aspects of the self...viewed through the dehumanizing perspective of childhood, the example his parents laid the foundation for the development of a powerful lifelong coping mechanism, grounded in a self-protective indifference to the pain of others." (pp. 14-16)
My only point in rehearsing the whole sad tale, is too emphasize for lay people that when Justin A. Frank comes to the conclusion of Bush's paranoid (the feeling of being attacked) and schzoid (disjointed, cut off, split) personality, the personal history is there to back it up. When, as an analyst, you come to a rather severe diagnosis, the diagnosis common to criminals and dictators, you can't get away with simple subjective responses. You have to demonstrate that the pedigree is there...that the kinds of events that in typical in the history of personality disorders like this are, in fact, there is the present case. This is what Frank is doing in a convincing way.
Look, whether you take a Kleinian view of this (remind me to explain what that means sometime) or not, quite independently of Justin Frank go look up the impact on children of childhood sibling death yourself:
Children aged 6-8 have seen dead birds and bugs, seen people die on television, and heard it talked about. They think of death as a scary thing that they can hide from, by hiding under the bed, for example. They say things like "When your hair gets white, you die, right?" They associate death with ghosts and skeletons. They know what it is, but not that it is going to affect them personally. They may ask questions about the death over and over. It is as if they have to learn the lesson of death many times for it to sink in.
At these young ages, children engage in what is called "magical" thinking. They may believe, for example, that their anger can kill, and that they cause the events surrounding them. They are still the center of their own universe and may take the blame for the death. Adults bereaved in childhood have often suffered for years, believing that they were responsible for their sibling's death. ( ref here)
Again:
There is evidence to suggest that children are not hurt by exposure to death so much as by closed communication. Bowen (1978, cited in Walker 1993) suggests that this is especially pertinent to cases of cancer. Waechter (1971, cited in Walker 1993) found that children who were not protected from the prognosis of their sibling and were able to talk openly to family members about it showed less anxiety than those who were not informed of prognosis.
McCown and Pratt (1985, cited in Gibbons 1992) postulate that siblings who were particularly at risk of maladaptive functioning were:
* those aged 6-11
* those identified as having previous behaviour problems
* siblings of deceased males
* children whose dying siblings are more than two years old
* children whose siblings died of cancer
* brothers and sisters whose siblings died in hospital (ref here)
What should this mean to you? The splitting of the world into good and evil is not a result of policy, neo-con philosophy, or a reaction to the events of 9/11. Policies are be changed. Philosophies can be adjusted to reality, and reactions can be evaluated. No. The feeling of being attacked and the absolute and irreconcilable split of the world into good and evil is personal with our President. He's felt it all his life and he will feel it to the day he dies. There is no end to it. Ever. Regardless of the reality of events.
And the problem with that is? He has army at his command, for the foreign evil-doers. He has the NSA and FBI at his command, for the domestic evil-doers.
The President's Analyst