Autumn Light: Honouring the Siblings Who Shape Us
October 2026
Autumn Light: Honouring the Siblings Who Shape Us
I always notice a distinct shift in the energetic landscape of my practice when October arrives. The autumn air turns crisp, the leaves begin their beautiful, necessary shedding, and our evenings draw in, quietly nudging us toward introspection. It is an underrated season, full of vibrant, defiant colours on those cold, bright days. For many of us, this specific shift in the weather triggers a deep wave of nostalgia, carrying our adult minds right back to primary school halls. There is a vivid, enduring memory for many of us in gathering together for harvest assemblies, squeezing up next to each other on a cold wooden floor to sing from Come and Praise choir books. There is a unique, comforting magic in looking back at those shared childhood rhythms.
Also, as we enter Baby Loss Awareness Week (9–15 October 2026), my mind naturally turns from those shared childhood spaces to the profound reality of sibling bonds. It is a sacred, deeply reverent time on the calendar. When a family experiences the devastating loss of an infant, our therapeutic instincts quite naturally wrap around the grieving parents. Yet, as a therapist working across the lifespan, I am frequently reminded of a quiet territory that is rarely talked about: the profound ripple effect of this loss on living siblings.
Whether a child was old enough to remember holding that baby, or was born years into the quiet aftermath of a loss they never personally witnessed, the impact on their internal world is immense. Grief within a family system is rarely uniform; instead, it leaves an acute awareness that we all hold and process loss for people in entirely different ways. For some, a sibling’s absence is woven into the very fabric of their arrival, perhaps preceded by the memory of a parent’s high-risk pregnancy, clinical bed rest, or the anxiety of a hospital stay. For others, that bond is carried through enduring family traditions, such as a private summer birthday reflection, a special prayer, or the annual lighting of a candle or a sacred flame. These gentle acts of remembrance remind us that honouring a sibling bond doesn't look the same for everyone, yet each expression is a valid monument to a relationship that matters.
This month, I want to step away from treating this topic purely as a study in bereavement. Instead, I want to use emerging relational science to celebrate the unique blueprint of the sibling relationship, exploring how these early attachments shape who we are, how we build resilience, and how love beautifully persists across a lifetime.
The Playground of the Mind: A Unique Blueprint for Attachment
Traditional psychology has historically operated on classical attachment theory. Focusing almost exclusively on the parent-child dyad as the sole creator of a child’s emotional development. Yet, modern empirical research is revealing a beautiful shift. Recent insights into family systems demonstrate that sibling relationships provide an entirely independent, robust attachment framework that operates parallel to parental care (Kriss, 2026).
A sibling is a rare psychological phenomenon: they function simultaneously as a secure attachment figure, which can be a source of safety, and a peer companion in play. Long before we navigate the vulnerabilities of schoolyard friendships or adult romantic partnerships, it is with our brothers and sisters that we first map out what developmental psychologists call a "Theory of Mind" (Wimmer & Perner, 1983). This is the cognitive milestone where a child learns that another person has their own distinct thoughts, feelings, and secret perspectives. Siblinghood is our very first, low-stakes laboratory for learning empathy, practising fierce negotiation, and mastering the art of emotional repair after a conflict. To celebrate a sibling is to celebrate the very co-designer of our social identity.
Within this relational framework, older siblings often step into the unconscious role of behavioural pathfinders. Relational data tracking childhood socialisation demonstrates that younger siblings heavily rely on their older brothers and sisters for reassurance, using them as a psychological compass to gauge what is safe and what is possible (Rogers et al., 2023). If you find yourself navigating adult life with a natural sense of curiosity or a bold appetite for adventure, it is highly likely that this template was quietly co-authored in childhood. Watching an older sibling step out into the world first gives a younger child a unique form of social permission; their bravery becomes a safe, visible target to emulate (Samuels, 1980). They are our first protectors and our first mirrors, confirming that before we ever look outward to our peers for confirmation, we look sideways to our siblings to find our footing.
This comforting presence becomes incredibly apparent during transitions, a theme that has been highly present in the therapy room over the last few weeks. As the new academic term settles in, several clients have been navigating the unique, quiet ache of sibling separation. For some of my younger clients, this autumn marked their transition into secondary school, where they suddenly look across a vast, busy playground and find that their older sibling is no longer there to spot them in the crowd. For older clients, it has been the emotional adjustment of packing up boxes and watching a sibling head off to university or college. These milestones bring a very specific type of micro-grief, creating a shifting of rhythms where the daily reassurance of a sibling's physical presence is replaced by a sudden distance. It serves as a powerful reminder of how much we rely on their steady, comforting proximity to feel safe as we step out into the world.
The "Sibling Team" and Shared Resilience
When the unpredictable storms of life hit a household, and there is no storm quite as destabilising as perinatal or infant loss, this peer network can become an extraordinary engine of survival. When parents are understandably consumed by the heavy, necessary fog of acute grief, their emotional availability is naturally altered. In attachment literature, we frequently observe what is known as the "buffering effect."
Empirical data tracks how, during periods of profound parental stress or trauma, living siblings will often naturally form a cohesive "sibling team" (Gass et al., 2007). They look to one another as a safe haven and a secure base, using their shared, private world of imagination and play to maintain emotional regulation. This is something to be profoundly celebrated. It reminds us of the incredible agency, intuition, and emotional intelligence of children. It shows us that even when a family system is deeply fractured by loss, the capacity for secure attachment doesn’t vanish from the home; it adapts, moves sideways, and beautifully protects the children right in front of us.
Continuing Bonds: Attachment Beyond Absence
But what about the sibling who isn't physically here? What about the adult clients who carry the weight of an "invisible sibling" who passed away before they were born, or the young children trying to comprehend a brother or sister who exists only in photographs and whispered stories?
This is where relational science offers its most comforting, celebratory truth. The outdated psychological models of the past insisted that healthy grieving required "closure" or a clinical breaking of ties. Modern grief therapy, rooted in Continuing Bonds Theory, completely refutes this, proving that human beings maintain internal working models of their attachment figures across their entire lifespan, regardless of physical presence (Klass et al., 1996).
For an adult client, realising that it is entirely normal to feel a deep, shaping attachment to a sibling they never met on earth can be incredibly liberating. It untangles them from the unspoken pressure to be the "perfect child" to heal their parents' historical pain, allowing them to see that their empathy, their protective nature, or their creative drive might be a beautiful, living expression of that connection. For young clients, attachment doesn't require literal memory; it thrives on shared family narrative. When a child draws a picture for the baby who died, they aren't engaging in something morbid. They are actively practising healthy attachment behaviours by seeking proximity, communicating love, and integrating that sibling into their own evolving story.
Integrating the Light
Baby Loss Awareness Week can feel like a heavy season of deep, reverent sorrow. Yet, just as the golden autumn leaves remind us that shedding and beauty can exist at the exact same time, exploring the sibling bond allows us to find a space for healing. We acknowledge that the love generated by a child's brief existence, or the shared survival of those left behind, leaves an indelible, beautiful mark on the family’s emotional story.
As the month progresses, I am preparing to light a candle for the global #WaveOfLight 7pm, on Thursday 15th October, remembering all those who are no longer here with us today. Maybe this is the year they can be part of your remembrance. In many homes, children are gently included in this ritual, perhaps by picking out a special candle or sitting in the warmth of the glow. Doing so allows young minds to see that grief and celebration can live comfortably in the exact same room, modelling that it is safe to look at the space where a sibling should have been, while fiercely honouring, protecting, and celebrating the beautiful connections that remain.
Thank you, as always, for making time to read this month’s blog. If you are navigating your own experiences of peer grief, or want to explore how your early family dynamics continue to shape your adult relationships, please feel free to book a free consultation or get in touch seetal@hummingbirdsandmarigoldstherapy.com . I would love to walk that path with you.
Warm wishes, Seetal
References:
Gass, K., Jenkins, J. and Dunn, J. (2007). 'Are sibling relationships protective? A longitudinal study', Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(2), pp. 167-175.
Klass, D., Silverman, P.R. and Nickman, S.L. (eds.) (1996). Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis.
Kriss, A. (2026). 'The Lateral Extension: Sibling Attachment Frameworks Parallel to Parent Care', The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 79(1), pp. 112-128.
Rogers, C.R., Wood, L.S. and Tan, P. (2023). 'Neural mirroring and behavioral emulation in sibling dyads: An fMRI investigation into reward and risk valuation', Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 61, p. 101243.
Samuels, H.R. (1980). 'The effect of an older sibling on infant locomotor exploration of a new environment', Child Development, 51(2), pp. 607-609.
Wimmer, H. and Perner, J. (1983). 'Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception', Cognition, 13(1), pp. 103-128.
