Resolving sibling quarrel with hypnosis

Edwin Selij
May 03, 2019

Arguments happen even in the best of families. You might have a fight with your parents, your brother or sister, or both, and there can be all sorts of reasons for it. Sometimes it’s very difficult to resolve a conflict with a family member. In this blog, I’ll take a closer look at conflicts with your brother and/or sister, what can cause them, and how you can resolve them.

Arguing between siblings can come from factors from within yourself or from the child, and it can come from factors outside yourself or outside the child[1]

Factors beyond yourself

Factors beyond yourself that contribute to sibling quarrels include:

  • Order of birth
  • Gender
  • Temperament
  • Talent
  • Developmental
  • Mental Disorders

The order of birth has an influence in that the oldest and youngest child often have an advantage in arguments, and so the middle child does not.

Treating opposite-sex children differently can cause conflict later on when 1 of the 2 no longer picks up on this difference. After all, we live in an emancipated society.

One person is not the other. Some people get angry faster than others and others are more sensitive. This difference in character can cause arguments.

One child is good at something and another is not. This is true even for adults. Of course, because of this talent, you can get a (too) big ego and be a little too proud of yourself or your sibling can become jealous of you without being arrogant about what you can do.

Developmental stage affects children in the sense that an older child has developed further and is therefore better able to assess how to trigger the younger child to provoke an argument.

Mental health conditions such as ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, autism, and anxiety disorders can also lead to arguments because they often result in abnormal behavior.

Factors within yourself that create internal conflict

There are also factors within yourself that can be identified as triggers for arguments with your sibling, but which have been dormant within yourself for a long time first. This may include low self-esteem or shyness and sensitivity, for example. You don't want to start an argument then, but can thus start sulking.

If you're not much of a talker, you can be characterized as the strong silent type, but usually that's precisely when you're vulnerable because you can't properly articulate how you feel and what irritates you. Comments can hurt you, but because you don't express it, it can make you less self-confident and eventually lead to an argument if you do say something.

Is your sibling someone with a disorder? If so, you can guard against criticizing that sibling. You keep quiet even though you actually want to say something can or cannot be done. You don't want to further harm or hurt your brother or sister. You may also be bothered by the fact that you are not affected by that condition and feel a kind of guilt that you were spared that fate.

Factors that strengthen the bond between adult siblings

Now that you know why you can get into arguments, it's also helpful to know how to make sure that you have a good relationship with your sibling. Especially in adult life, making a conscious commitment or commitment to have a good bond is important to prevent future quarrels and to reduce existing quarrels.

Research[2] shows that the following points are important for this.

There are 11 ways to demonstrate commitment to being a good sibling, namely:

  • Tangible support (such as giving money, helping with moving)
  • Emotional support (such as listening)
  • Information support (such as giving tips)
  • Support self-confidence (as with giving compliments)
  • Supporting the network (such as helping in your network with finding work)
  • Daily talk
  • Doing something together (brother/sister days)
  • Expressing Love
  • Showing love (giving hugs or the like)
  • Protection

Protect Your Sibling is most commonly used to show commitment as a sibling. What you do as a sibling directly affects the feeling of having a fine relationship. Emotional support, network support and having joint activities can be used to predict a good relationship.

These things you can do for getting a good relationship you can also use to resolve an argument.

Resolving sibling arguments

So what you do and giving emotional support and networking support affect your relationship.

An argument often involves hard feelings. Someone is angry, someone is hurt, and you have a stalemate. You can't get out of it.

In this case, it is important that both parties do their best to provide emotional support. In this case, having a listening ear, without judgment.

Just the latter can be very difficult.

After all, someone is angry about something and hurt by something. That something is something you need to share with each other in order to get out of the argument. This requires that both parties are willing and able to make themselves vulnerable.

Removing blockages

A hypnosis expert can help you prepare for this call. For example, there may be roadblocks to why you find it difficult to have this conversation.

Beliefs you have about the world how it functions and how you function in it, for example, can block you from having such a vulnerable conversation.

A hypnosis expert can identify these beliefs—for example, through regression. Regression takes you back to the moment when you became convinced, for instance, that you should never show vulnerability toward your brother or sister (because you’ll only end up getting hurt anyway).

However, because many beliefs originate in your childhood, they can be illogical. Therefore, with hypnosis you can go back to that moment to see with your adult knowledge (and new knowledge of how your sibling acts) if the belief is still true.

This can make you open to having a good conversation with your brother or sister sooner to resolve the argument once and for all.

Practicing the conversation

You may also know about yourself that you are hot-tempered and find it difficult to keep listening when you hear something you don't like and just totally disagree with. If you know that you then normally go straight into the discussion, it is helpful to practice listening first.

A hypnosis expert can help you with this as well. This can be done, for example, with a guided visualization in which you see before you just how you do remain calm when your brother or sister says something you totally disagree with. In the visualization you see clearly in front of you how you keep listening instead of immediately having the discussion in your mind which only makes it seem like you are listening. So you can then also practice mindfulness.

For example, a guided visualization can go the following way:

"You agreed with your brother/sister to finally talk out your dispute. You shake hands or hug your brother/sister and ask how things are going. You ask who gets to have his/her say first and that each gets to tell the whole story as he/she sees it without being interrupted. Then together you will identify points where you and your brother/sister have been an idiot and how to avoid this in the future. When it is your turn you tell what happened in your view and how those events changed how you feel. You listen to your brother/sister and do not interrupt him/her. You stay with your attention to the story. After hearing each other's points, you tell each other what you didn't realize about the other person and why you were an idiot and how to do better in the future. Your brother or sister does this too. You give each other a hug and however it continues now, you are glad that you were able to have your say and that you gained more insight into your brother/sister."

This is just an example of a guided visualization of how to work out an argument. Depending on your relationship with your sibling and the argument you have, a hypnosis expert may do a different exercise with you to resolve it.

For example, there can also be exercises that make you more open to having a good relationship with your brother or sister that have nothing at all to do with the argument per se.

Want to know exactly how hypnosis works and what exercises you can do to solve problems? Then come to the free online master class or register directly for one of our training courses.

Sources:

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/inside-out-outside-in/201904/managing-sibling-conflicts-the-obvious-and-hidden-battles

[2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15267430701857364