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My Dearest Enemy, My Dangerous Friend: Making and Breaking Sibling Bonds
Stories about siblings abound in literature, drama, comedy, biography, and history. We rarely talk about our own siblings without emotion, whether with love and gratitude, or exasperation, bitterness, anger and hate. Nevertheless, the subject of what it is to be and to have a sibling is one that has been ignored by psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists. In My Dearest Enemy, My Dangerous Friend , Dorothy Rowe presents a radically new way of thinking about siblings that unites the many apparently contradictory aspects of these complex relationships. This helps us to recognise the various experiences involved in sibling relationships as a result of the fundamental drive for survival and validation, enabling us to reach a deeper understanding of our siblings and ourselves. If you have a sibling, or you are bringing up siblings, or, as an only child, you want to know what you’re missing, this is the book for you.
376 pages, Paperback
First published April 3, 2007
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98 people want to read
About the author
Dorothy Rowe
55 books41 followersThe psychologist who has changed how we understand depression and happiness
"Dorothy Rowes is the calm voice of reason in an increasingly mad world"
Sue Townsend
Dorothy Rowe is a world-renowned psychologist and writer. Her explanation of depression gives the depressed person a way of taking charge of their life and leaving the prison of depression forever.
She shows how we each live in a world of meaning that we have created. She applies this understanding to important aspects of our lives, such as emotional distress, happiness, growing old, religious belief, politics, money, friends and enemies, extraverts and introverts, parents, children and siblings.
Her work liberates us from the bamboozling lies that mental health experts and politicians tell in order to keep us in our place and themselves in power.
"
"Dorothy Rowes is the calm voice of reason in an increasingly mad world"
Sue Townsend
Dorothy Rowe is a world-renowned psychologist and writer. Her explanation of depression gives the depressed person a way of taking charge of their life and leaving the prison of depression forever.
She shows how we each live in a world of meaning that we have created. She applies this understanding to important aspects of our lives, such as emotional distress, happiness, growing old, religious belief, politics, money, friends and enemies, extraverts and introverts, parents, children and siblings.
Her work liberates us from the bamboozling lies that mental health experts and politicians tell in order to keep us in our place and themselves in power.
"
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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November 18, 2025As one of four sisters, this book jumped off the shelf at me in Oxfam. I’d heard about the Australian psychotherapist Dorothy Rowe when I was at university and had always intended to read some of her stuff, so here I am, a full forty years later, finally doing just that.
Rowe has an older sister herself, and not one with whom she’s had an uncomplicated relationship, so it would be fair to say that her views are coloured by this. Although she understands the reasons for the animosity between herself and her ‘Big Sister’ – the latter was sent to stay with relatives for months during and after Rowe’s birth – Rowe does not affect to be detached from her early childhood experiences, during which her sister was dominating and bullying. One incident she recalls, in which Dorothy wrote her own name (‘DOT’ in huge, clumsy lettering) in her sister’s precious autograph book, to a furious response, reminded me of an incident in my own childhood, and this and other anecdotes I found relatable.
It's a huge subject. As well as drawing on sketches of her own childhood and case studies from her clinical practice, Rowe analyses sibling relationships through stories found in literature and among real-life personalities. I liked this aspect: siblings as varied as the Mitford sisters, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, and Lallie and Margaret in Ordinary Families by E. Arnot Robertson (not ‘Robinson’ as here – where was the editor?) are examined, with genuinely appealing insights deriving from both fictional and real people. You will come across both the photojournalist Don McCullin and the author Michael Rosen speaking fluently about their respective brothers, and I was personally delighted to find Alexandra Fuller and her sister Vanessa, having just seen the fabulous film based on Alexandra’s memoir of Zimbabwe’s transition from white rule, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Embeth Davidtz. No Brontës, however, I'm sorry to say.
Rowe’s voice is at times almost comically offhand (‘her father had quietened down, as psychopaths usually do as they get older’) and, probably of necessity, she tends to make sweeping statements and draw one-dimensional dichotomies, such as in the chapter on introversion and extraversion, where she adopts a Jungian perspective to which I’m personally sympathetic. It can be repetitive too - I lost count of the number of times one sibling threatens to 'annihilate the personhood' of another. But many of her ideas are thought-provoking and worthy of note. She has much to say about ‘Being Good’ within a multi-child household, and how that striving to be ‘the goodest’ affects the whole of our adult lives in different ways, depending on whether we pursue that aim or reject it. Her description of how a child’s belief in a ‘Just World’ can extend to adulthood and so affect factors such as loyalty and memory in sibling relationships is equally fruitful. I could have done with more on memory, in fact, as I have long been interested in how recollections of childhood can differ wildly between children of the same household.
Refreshingly, Rowe has no recommendations for siblings:
If I were a proper psychologist, that is, someone who sees people as being no more than containers of dysfunctional cognitions and unhelpful traits, but capable of learning functional cognitions and methods of restraining their unhelpful traits, I would give you Ten Tips which would enable you to create a relationship of unmitigated joy with your siblings. Alas, I am not a proper psychologist. I cannot help but be aware of the curious mystery of being a person, something we all experience as being very real and of immense importance, yet something that is dependent on the functioning of a lump of grey matter. …that lump of grey matter creates a person who must live forever in his or her individual world of meaning, yet in order to develop and survive, must negotiate with other people, each of whom lives in his or her own world of meaning. Amongst these people are our siblings. We may grow up in the same house, but we live in different countries.
There are instances where the book is outdated (describing Islam as ‘a movement’ is something you’d hope wouldn’t be countenanced now), and I thought the title excessively negative, but in essence, there’s much here that's thought-provoking and simply enjoyable to read, even if at times it’s probably somewhat inaccurate and simplistic.
Rowe has an older sister herself, and not one with whom she’s had an uncomplicated relationship, so it would be fair to say that her views are coloured by this. Although she understands the reasons for the animosity between herself and her ‘Big Sister’ – the latter was sent to stay with relatives for months during and after Rowe’s birth – Rowe does not affect to be detached from her early childhood experiences, during which her sister was dominating and bullying. One incident she recalls, in which Dorothy wrote her own name (‘DOT’ in huge, clumsy lettering) in her sister’s precious autograph book, to a furious response, reminded me of an incident in my own childhood, and this and other anecdotes I found relatable.
It's a huge subject. As well as drawing on sketches of her own childhood and case studies from her clinical practice, Rowe analyses sibling relationships through stories found in literature and among real-life personalities. I liked this aspect: siblings as varied as the Mitford sisters, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, and Lallie and Margaret in Ordinary Families by E. Arnot Robertson (not ‘Robinson’ as here – where was the editor?) are examined, with genuinely appealing insights deriving from both fictional and real people. You will come across both the photojournalist Don McCullin and the author Michael Rosen speaking fluently about their respective brothers, and I was personally delighted to find Alexandra Fuller and her sister Vanessa, having just seen the fabulous film based on Alexandra’s memoir of Zimbabwe’s transition from white rule, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Embeth Davidtz. No Brontës, however, I'm sorry to say.
Rowe’s voice is at times almost comically offhand (‘her father had quietened down, as psychopaths usually do as they get older’) and, probably of necessity, she tends to make sweeping statements and draw one-dimensional dichotomies, such as in the chapter on introversion and extraversion, where she adopts a Jungian perspective to which I’m personally sympathetic. It can be repetitive too - I lost count of the number of times one sibling threatens to 'annihilate the personhood' of another. But many of her ideas are thought-provoking and worthy of note. She has much to say about ‘Being Good’ within a multi-child household, and how that striving to be ‘the goodest’ affects the whole of our adult lives in different ways, depending on whether we pursue that aim or reject it. Her description of how a child’s belief in a ‘Just World’ can extend to adulthood and so affect factors such as loyalty and memory in sibling relationships is equally fruitful. I could have done with more on memory, in fact, as I have long been interested in how recollections of childhood can differ wildly between children of the same household.
Refreshingly, Rowe has no recommendations for siblings:
If I were a proper psychologist, that is, someone who sees people as being no more than containers of dysfunctional cognitions and unhelpful traits, but capable of learning functional cognitions and methods of restraining their unhelpful traits, I would give you Ten Tips which would enable you to create a relationship of unmitigated joy with your siblings. Alas, I am not a proper psychologist. I cannot help but be aware of the curious mystery of being a person, something we all experience as being very real and of immense importance, yet something that is dependent on the functioning of a lump of grey matter. …that lump of grey matter creates a person who must live forever in his or her individual world of meaning, yet in order to develop and survive, must negotiate with other people, each of whom lives in his or her own world of meaning. Amongst these people are our siblings. We may grow up in the same house, but we live in different countries.
There are instances where the book is outdated (describing Islam as ‘a movement’ is something you’d hope wouldn’t be countenanced now), and I thought the title excessively negative, but in essence, there’s much here that's thought-provoking and simply enjoyable to read, even if at times it’s probably somewhat inaccurate and simplistic.
January 8, 2019
A really in depth and embracing study of the sibling relationship and how that fits within the wider family unit, and how parents can contribute to this special relationship for good or ill.
I'd recommend anyone who has brothers or sisters to read this. It forces you to confront truths about your sibling relationships and work out ways that maybe, just maybe, you might be able to work things out if you have a difficult relationship with a sibling. But it also shows you how to face the fact that you may not be able to heal a rift, and that is actually okay in that you owe it to yourself to take care of your own mental health. If you do already have a quality relationship with a sibling, then after reading Dorothy's book, you will appreciate it all the more.
Packed with her own experiences, which, one could speculate, may have actually motivated the author to become a psychologist, she weaves in many life experiences, viewpoints and feelings concerning siblings from people she has talked to over many years. And as an author of a novel with two estranged sisters as the central characters, after reading My Dearest Enemy...I was happy that I had represented them realistically. My Dearest Enemy...is a unique and brilliant book for anyone interested in psychology or relationships.
I'd recommend anyone who has brothers or sisters to read this. It forces you to confront truths about your sibling relationships and work out ways that maybe, just maybe, you might be able to work things out if you have a difficult relationship with a sibling. But it also shows you how to face the fact that you may not be able to heal a rift, and that is actually okay in that you owe it to yourself to take care of your own mental health. If you do already have a quality relationship with a sibling, then after reading Dorothy's book, you will appreciate it all the more.
Packed with her own experiences, which, one could speculate, may have actually motivated the author to become a psychologist, she weaves in many life experiences, viewpoints and feelings concerning siblings from people she has talked to over many years. And as an author of a novel with two estranged sisters as the central characters, after reading My Dearest Enemy...I was happy that I had represented them realistically. My Dearest Enemy...is a unique and brilliant book for anyone interested in psychology or relationships.
July 30, 2024
I am fascinated in siblings, and though most people have one, there aren’t many books about the subject. This was recommended by Annalisa Barbieri but it does feel dated now. The themed chapters are interesting but feel a bit meandering and it’s not clear sometimes until the end what the learning point is. A bit gendered and binary, but the stories are fascinating so it was an interesting read.
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November 18, 2020Excellent book!
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July 30, 2011It's so rare to find a psychologist that will diagnose herself, along with her subjects when she's trying to make an important point. Dorothy; thank you. I bought this book ages ago on the recommendation of a friend, and read it by chance when I was trying to understand the relationship I have with my family.
This book not only looks at pertinent case studies in the field of psychology, but also (and most interesting for me), the memoires of huge literary figures such as Gertrude Stein, Simone de Beauvoir, and JD Salinger. She claims that the relationships you have with your siblings are as individual as a snowflakes, but that careful analysis of yourself and the fear you have about being invalidated by those siblings can help you understand the role you played, and, consequently, the person you became in your family.
If you've ever fought seriously with a sibling, or felt invalidated through their behaviour towards you, then this is a book you should read.
This book not only looks at pertinent case studies in the field of psychology, but also (and most interesting for me), the memoires of huge literary figures such as Gertrude Stein, Simone de Beauvoir, and JD Salinger. She claims that the relationships you have with your siblings are as individual as a snowflakes, but that careful analysis of yourself and the fear you have about being invalidated by those siblings can help you understand the role you played, and, consequently, the person you became in your family.
If you've ever fought seriously with a sibling, or felt invalidated through their behaviour towards you, then this is a book you should read.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews