Review of Identical Strangers A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
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Review of Identical Strangers A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
Introduction
Identical Strangers A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Schein and Bernstein (2008) is an incredibly enlightening read. Written by twin sisters, Schein and Bernstein tell their story in alternate voices. They walk the reader through their journey of discovering their twinhood by sharing their emotions. They also describe how it felt to be reunited at the age of 33. They describe the journey vividly, explaining the initial intimacy they shared as twins and how a gap grew between them due to separation. Openly, they have developed into strangers. The story gives a first-hand view of the statistics and studies on twin science and its ethical implications. It also presents a glimpse of human nature being juxtaposed with nurture. While presenting the experience of twins separated and reunited, the book exposes what is and is not genetically determined and exposes the impact of early trauma and the environment on development.
Book Summary
Elyse Schein was in her mid-thirties, a film producer and living in Paris. She was adopted but had lost her adoptive mother at a younger age. She decides to search for her biological mother. She contacted her adoption agency and discovered more than she was looking for, that she had an identical twin sister. Furthermore, she also discovered that they had been separated at infancy and had been part of a secret study on separated twins.
Paula Bernstein also knew she was adopted but was never keen to look for her birth mother. She was a married writer and mother in New York City. The truth was soon surfaced when she received a call from the adoption agency informing her of her adoption. This new realization suddenly divided her life pre and post, knowing the truth.
As they re-join and make their speculative first strides from aliens to sisters, Schein and Bernstein are left with frequenting questions encompassing their inceptions and division. – more so, because the writers were essential to the notorious research directed by Peter Neubauer through the Louise Wise Adoption Agency. The twins were isolated without the knowledge of their supportive families. Over the period, with no one being informed about the youngsters’ twinship, the researcher closely followed the twins’ development in the week after week meetings. The guardians also stayed in the dark about the purpose of the meetings. Without their knowledge, the meetings were used to contrast the separated twins with close-by twins. As a consequence of their experience, the sisters approached superior twin scientists, including Neubauer. On this, they give a chilling record of the meeting. Before the meeting, they had hypothesized that his examination was meant to study the hereditability of dysfunctional behavior. Assuming the assumption’s validity, the new parents were not informed about the studied disorders like schizophrenia in the children’s family ancestry. The results of the study, surprisingly, have never been distributed.
Critical Analysis
Ultimately, the book teaches a lot on the subject of nature versus nurture in developmental psychology. Readers can identify that nature is responsible for some peculiar things about the similarities observed among people. For example, both Schein and Bernstein had suffered depression in their teenage years. Also, each had felt a loss that they could not explain. Upon reuniting, they discovered that they had chosen similar career lines and had lived similar lives. They were also astonished that they expressed similar behaviors and life expressions. As authors and specialists, they revealed the Adoption Agency’s dirty acts and discovered other twin sets (and in one case triplets) who had been separated and brought up independently as part of the secret research examination. The outcomes were intriguing – that twins frequently wedded comparable companions, entered comparable careers, had similar dogs. However, as Schein and Bernstein uncovered, the expenses of such unethical studies are excessively high. Overall, such do not legitimize the methods, the torment, and enduring of numerous families.
The book Identical Strangers A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited also brings out the sisters’ continued self-realization journey. This is one of the key themes ventured into as the authors alternate in the narrating “intrusively” on their doubts, fears, and secret wishes and misgivings about finding out and incorporating a twin into their lives. This is surely not one of the most comfortable things to confess to their readers, and by extension, their twin is a marvel.
Anti-stoutness is another of the unsettling subjects addressed by this book. The twins repeatedly compare their weight with being lighter outstanding as a better option. They agree that it would be easier to tell families about the birth mother’s mental illness, which is described as less shameful than obesity. Both obesity and mental illness should be addressed with seriousness due to the complications and associated stigma. It gets sad when they reveal that mental illness is what contributed to their mothers’ demise. Overall, the idea that the book considers being unattractive worse than being unhappy and chemically unbalanced (that may cause death) does not fit within the frameworks of developmental and wellness psychology.
The ethicality of nature versus nurture study is put in question by this book. The study pegged on the anonymity of the presence of the twins. The two sisters generally had lived well enough despite their separation. They seem not to have qualms with their being raised separately. The authors also do not present any evidence that their separation was by any way detrimental to them. However, a question might be pegged on what might have been different if they grew up together. The constant portrayal of the doctors who separated them as ‘super bad’ is absurd. In their presentation progression, they quote that their separators were not necessarily evil but close to being evil. t. In fact, they do not present solid and totally sufficient evidence to conclude that the doctors were accomplishing something innately off-base. Fundamentally, the reason that raising twins puts additional weight on guardians over raising a singleton, and being raised with twin places certain extraordinary weight on a child. This she explains that the twins would always be viewed as a unit. The authors of the book s affirm that the doctor’s reason is not completely implausible. Thus, foul play cannot be easily stated.
Schein and Bernstein’s (2008) account broadens family meaning and how a person’s heritage leaves an exceptional imprint in their lives. It also presents the science behind twin studies and dwells rather sufficiently on nature versus nurture theory. The psychological aspects of what it would be like to find another of themselves were incredible, but uncomfortable realizing that they were not as unique as they thought. One of the few misgivings of the book is that it was written with each twin giving their perspective. This limitation is furthered by the conversation-like writing style, which makes this book more authentic in its presentation of occurrences.
Conclusion
Separation of twins to facilitate nature versus nurture studies, though may be justified by the valuables it supplies to the field of science, comes with both benefits and limitations. The book Identical Strangers A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Schein and Bernstein (2008) provides an excellent breakdown of the backstory, an exposition that significantly fires up nature versus nurture debate. The questions raised in the book are answered, one by one, and they give intricate details that can support the teaching of developmental psychology.
Numerous questions may be asked about the content of the book. What led to the twin’s separation? What was the adoption agency trying to do or prove by separating identical twins in their placements? Why are those who were still alive to defend the decisions so intent on their righteousness? How were people with a mental health condition treated in the 1950s and 1960s? How do schizophrenia and bipolar disorder affect a family? How does it feel to be raised knowing you were adopted? How does it feel when one discovers they have a sibling they never knew about, let alone an identical twin? Altogether, these issues make an amazing story. Schein and Bernstein (2008) have successfully compiled answers to these questions in a way that gives a reader the first-hand experience of people that have endured separation and reunited at a later age. The book, thus, makes an informative read that may greatly support psychological theory development. The book is, therefore, highly recommended for psychology learners.
Reference
Schein, E., & Bernstein, P. (2008). Identical Strangers: A Memoir of twins separated and reunited. Random House Incorporated.