What Can We Learn About Twins' Lives?

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Working directly with twins is informative as well as enjoyable, yet some researchers have had little experience watching and mulling over the details of twins’ lives. This information can substantially shape how they see their results and how they form new ideas. This article aims to present an in-depth look at the lives of three identical twin pairs with respect to the relationship they share and the relationship they lost.

The three twin pairs I have chosen are male, but that was not decided consciously. These three pairs were chosen because they have beautifully articulated, significant aspects of their twinship. The information I will present has been drawn fully from the twins’ autobiographical accounts.

Marcus and Alex

The compelling story of British twins Marcus and Alex Lewis was told in a 2019 documentary film, Tell Me Who I Am. I have both seen the film and read the book on which the film was based.

Marcus and Alex were born in 1964 to Jill Dudley, and her late husband, John Lewis. Their father passed away when the twins were three weeks old. He was killed in a car accident in which Alex was thrown from the car and suffered a fractured skull. Marcus was not in the car at the time, remaining in the maternity hospital due to an infection, but Alex was well enough to be on his way home.

The twins were raised by their mother’s new husband, Jack Dudley, who they had always thought was their father. Dudley was warm and accepting of the young twins in the beginning, but later became cold and abusive.

To the outside world, the twins’ lives were not unusual. They were polite, obedient, and very close brothers. However, there were dark secrets—the twins lived in a shed that was apart from their large family home and had no heating or plumbing. The twins were subjected to constant sexual abuse by their mother and her friends.

When the twins were 18, Alex had a serious motorcycle accident, fracturing his skull for a second time. When he awoke in the hospital, the first person he noticed was Marcus. Alex knew his brother immediately, but his memory for all other people and events had been destroyed.

Alex became completely dependent upon Marcus to fill him in on his past and present. Marcus did so but constructed a world that did not include the sexual abuse to which the brothers had been subjected. This was Marcus’s way of protecting his twin and of coping with his own trauma.

Marcus had never before concealed information from his brother, but this time he did so out of love and self-protection. However, over the years, Alex gradually learned that there were family secrets and what they were. In an emotional sequence at the end of the film, Marcus finally shared his memories with his twin.

Self-Analysis of the Loss of a Twin: George and Frank Engel

When I was in my first year of graduate school at the University of Chicago, I attended an event at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. I heard Dr. George L. Engel, a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, deliver a lecture titled, “Mourning and Anniversary Reactions to the Death of a Twin.” My theoretical framework was behavioral-genetic, but psychoanalysts often provide insightful biographical details in their case reports, and this was no exception.

Engel’s presentation was extraordinary. I contacted him to obtain a copy of his lecture that was eventually published. He sent it to me with a note: “You know why it is meaningful for me to have responses.” I would eventually conduct a large-scale study of twin loss at the University of Minnesota and California State University, Fullerton (Segal, 2019).

George and Frank Engel were born on December 10, 1913. They were known as “the twins,” never calling each other by name, but instead using the term “Oth”—short for “Other.” They spent more time together than with anyone else, becoming a complementary unit. They communicated partly through private words, behavior that delayed their language development, which is not unusual for twins.

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However, there was some rivalry between them growing up, what Engel calls “calibrated aggression,” in which they controlled their physical aggression toward one another. Both twins eventually became doctors, attending the same college, medical school, and internship. They finally separated when George joined the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in medicine, and Frank became affiliated with Yale University in biochemistry. When Frank passed away, he was a Professor of Medicine at Duke University, and George was a Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester.

Frank passed away suddenly at the age of 49 years, due to myocardial infarction. It was this sudden event that led to Engel’s self-analysis of content from dreams, coupled with a focus on anniversary dates involving the death of his father and twin. For example, it turned out that he was also at risk for a heart condition and believed he would not survive beyond the age of 58, his father’s age at death.

George Engel’s concluding remarks stress that the material in his paper should be regarded as data. He goes on to say, “To the extent that the paper is well-received, I have established the narcissistic gratification of the last twinship.” This paper is well worth reading for the rich autobiographical account of an identical twinship.

Individual Experience as Collective: Norris and (Alan) Ross McWhirter

In 2014-2015, I became a consultant for the Guinness Book of Records (GBR) to provide updated information regarding twinning events. I became fascinated with identical twins, Norris and Ross McWhirter, the founders of the GBR. These twins were both enthralled by "records and superlatives."

The first volume of their GBR series appeared on August 27, 1955, and became quite popular (McWhirter, 1976). The jacket cover notes that the GBR has outsold every other book except the Bible.

Ross is a book-length tribute to Norris’s twin brother, who was shot in November 1975 by suspected IRA terrorists. The shooting was done in retaliation for his launching of the Beat-the-Bombers campaign and related activities. Ross was a television broadcaster in addition to his role as co-editor of the GBR. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the twins’ childhood years in the London borough of Enfield, their education at the local kindergarten before attending the Chesterton boarding school, Oxford University, and the Royal Navy.

The intense, close relationship between these twin brothers is skillfully expressed. Upon hearing of his twin’s sudden death, Norris recalled, "As I was being driven back through the roadblock in a policeman’s sports car with my head under a blanket, I felt that I was about to be reborn—not as half a person but as a double person." He believed that non-twins, and even some twins, do not and cannot comprehend the intimacy that some identical twins enjoy.

In my studies, I find that identical twin survivors express slightly greater grief intensity than fraternal twin survivors, mirroring the nature and quality of their social relations, but there is plenty of overlap. Much more work needs to be done to explore the unique nature of the bond between twins, when they are present and when they are lost.

A more comprehensive version of this article is forthcoming in the journal Twin Research and Human Genetics.