When a Sibling Dies

The loss of a loved one has a profound and long-lasting impact on the entire family. Growing up without a protecting father who died young, facing middle age without the loving presence of a deceased significant other, or having to cope with the unfathomable tragedy of a death of a child all require assembling hidden courage to face the difficulty. However, allow me to draw your attention to one member of the mourning family that we unfortunately often forget: The siblings of the deceased.

Regrettably, just as we did when we were children, we treat ignoring siblings as a sport. In fact, growing up, giving brothers or sisters a cold shoulder after a fight was the advice many parents gave their children: "You go to this room, you go to that room, and don't talk to each other until you graduate." Parents sometimes may have flat-out said "ignore him." We learned very quickly that siblings are to be ignored.

Doing so is unhealthy considering the many advantages we gain from engaging our siblings. Siblings play an integral role in our lives: We learn how to think, cooperate, share, deal with emotions, and solve problems from our siblings.

Unfortunately, society as a whole has continued to relate to siblings just as we did when we were children: ignoring them. Even with everything we now know about how important siblings are throughout life, multiple sectors of practice have failed to account for sibling issues. This neglect can be seen in education, disability services, family law, and psychotherapy. Schools disregard the role of siblings in neglecting to devise ways for siblings to assist in school work. Disability services often lag when it comes to attending to the unique issues faced by siblings of those with disabilities. Family law unfortunately neglects the integral role played by siblings in the lives of individuals. And even in therapy sibling issues are rarely discussed.

Siblings are immensely important for our development throughout life. And hence the loss of a sibling has a profound impact on us. In fact, in an ongoing study on siblings and mourning that we are conducting at the psychology department at Ariel University in Israel we constantly hear from our participants how painful and impactful losing a sibling is. We also unfortunately find that overall the experience of siblings and mourning is neglected in public discussions, programs, events, and services. One of our participants noted, "Even when we were met by social workers after my brother died in the army, we were told to be strong for our parents. I thought, what about me? Who will be strong for me?"

As we contemplate the impact of death on families, we must pay attention to the plight of siblings who have lost a major part of their life. In addition to offering social services and psychotherapy to grieving parents and children, clinicians should seek out the siblings of the deceased to ensure that their loss and grief is not neglected.