This phenomenological qualitative study explored childhood and adolescent sibling abuse among adult survivors. The original intent was to explore informant’s perceptions of the effects of sibling abuse on their adult relationships. However, the study revealed significant findings beyond adult informant’s relatedness. Although some claim sibling abuse occurs more frequently than parent-child or spousal abuse, data tracking its incidence is unavailable. Therefore, it remains overlooked as normative sibling rivalry. Based on informants’ descriptions of their abuse, I distinguished sibling abuse as a distinct phenomenon with devastating childhood consequences and repercussions in self-concept and relatedness which extend into adulthood. In addition, this study provides rich description of the phenomenon of sibling abuse. Because no theoretically driven research about sibling relationships and object relations, family systems, and emerging theories of risk and resilience exist, this study incorporated sibling abuse into a developmental understanding of personality using these theoretical lenses.

Methods included recruitment of through flyers posted in colleges, graduate schools, local Y’s, and churches in addition to an advertisement in a professional social work newsletter. This yielded a sample of 19 self-identified survivors of sibling abuse, 15 female and four male. All subjects were over age 21 and once screened for a history of childhood or adolescent sibling abuse, participated in in-person in-depth interviews. I constructed an original interview guide informed by sensitizing concepts from the work of Weihe (1997).

Findings indicated sibling abuse put children at grave risk for physical and psychological injury. Additionally, the abusive sibling relationship affected perception of self and others into adulthood. Informants expressed problems establishing relationships both as children and as adults. Parent-child abuse was present many cases and modeled detrimental methods of communication. Informants expressed resilience through establishing relationships outside the home as children and through successful career achievement as adults.

Implications for this study include the need for child welfare workers to identify children at risk for sibling abuse. Mental health practitioners need heightened awareness of risk factors, symptoms, and devastating repercussions of sibling abuse. Limitations of the study include a homogeneous sample. This suggests the need for similar research with more demographically diverse samples.