Sybil (book) - Definition

Sybil is a book written by Flora Rheta Schreiber in 1973 about a woman with Multiple Personality Disorder. A movie was also made in 1976 based on the book. The book was written about a real woman, Shirley Mason. Shirley was treated for multiple personalities by Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, a Freudian therapist who used hypnosis and sodium amytal interviews to encourage Shirley's various selves to communicate and reveal information about Shirley's life.

In the book Sybil is a patient with severe issues of social anxiety and memory loss. After extended therapy Dr. Wilbur discovers that Sybil has 16 separate personalities. Some of them are:

• Sybil: Substitute day-care teacher who often experiences "missing time"
• Peggy: 9 years old, Peggy is bold and brassy, but can become angry and frightened. She often talks incoherently and repeats a phrase over and over. She breaks glass when she is upset.
• Vicki: Proper and formal to a fault. Vicki speaks fluent French, and is aware of everything that goes on in the system.
• Vanessa: An artistic and beautiful piano player, she befriends Rick, a man who lives in a neighboring apartment.
• Marsha: Sybil's dark and suicidal personality. Marsha unsuccessfully attempts to kill herself, although she knows that killing the body will result in the death of all the selves.

Dr. Wilbur decided that Shirley's multiple personalities resulted from childhood abuse at the hands of her mother, who was apparently schizophrenic. While the mother's bizarre behaviour was readily confirmed by Shirley's contemporaries, specific incidents related in the book may have been overdramatised for shock value. Shirley's therapy records have never been released, and both she and Dr. Wilbur are deceased as of 2004. A nonfiction book and film are planned about Shirley and her apparent lifelong toxic enmeshment with Dr. Wilbur.

References

• Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber, ISBN 0446359408
• Multiple personality controversies (http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/controversy.html) Contains a list of links to information about Shirley Mason, Cornelia Wilbur, and the Sybil book and film.