The Normal One: Life with a Difficult or Damaged Sibling Book

I had high hopes for this book since it covers a topic not often seen - what it is like for siblings to grow up in a family where one sibling has emotional or medical problems. Unfortunately, early in the book the author admits that she had a very hard time finding subjects to interview, since many of them refused to talk about their experience. Of the few that did, only one had more than one sibling. It seems dream analysis guided much of the author's conclusions, and in more than one place, I felt she was really reaching to come up with something. She also spent an inordinate amount of time sharing a story from literature to defend her naming of the whole experience as the "Caliban". Admittedly, she is also a biased researcher, having her own "damaged" sibling experience growing up.

I would label this "a good start", but ultimately it didn't go anywhere. For example, there are no tips on coping with such a situation - only an analysis of the phases a "normal" sibling would tend to go through. That's not helpful except to say "you aren't alone". This is written primarily to an adult audience, when it is too late to prevent anything. There is nothing helping any parents, siblings, or any other adult to prevent a "Caliban" experience. In other words, the conclusion is just that the situation is to be endured and survived, and to me, that really isn't a solution at all. Now that we know this, what are we going to do about it? It is my hope that someone picks up this research and does something more with it in the future.