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| The book in question |
After numerous occurrences of "missing time", Sybil Isabel Dorsett (The real woman this narrative being based off of is named Shirley Ardell Mason), a graduate student at Columbia University seeks help. Though the incident itself was nothing new, it's how much time that has passed which worries Sybil. After not recovering in the care of her parents, she eventually goes to a Psychologist by the name of Cornelia Wilbur. Nothing appears out of the ordinary at first. Sybil Isabel Dorsett is nothing more than a closed off, depressed individual. This is, however, until Sybil changes into someone else after a moment of extreme stress. Dr. Wilbur notices this, and is surprised. Sybil, as it turns out, is a split personality. This, however, is only the surface. Sybil, ends up having 16 separate personalities, 14 women and 2 men.
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| Shirley Adrell Mason |
Throughout the rest of this extremely well crafted biography, we learn about Sybil's terrible past, one of physical, verbal, and even sexual abuse at the hands of an unstable mother diagnosed, but never treated for, Schizophrenia. Through this, the death of her grandmother, an already strict, religious upbringing, and her father's inability to take action and save his daughter, Sybil acquires her numerous personalities who take over various aspects of her life, such as Peggy Ann, who is the only one who knows how to multiply and subsequently does her chemistry homework, or Mike who fixes things. At many points during the narrative, each alternate personality makes an appearance, and at one point, two personalities take over Sybil's body at the same time, but you would think that two different people are in the room thanks to Flora Rheta Schreiber's amazing writing style.
Dr. Wilbur, in the meantime, is trying to find a way to help her patient. As a doctor who practices Psychodynamic Analysis, she tries to help Sybil through the standard "sit on this couch and let's talk about your dreams" deal, which was big in the 50s. But, it's easy to see that such a technique won't work and so she must turn to hypnosis as a means to integrate Sybil and her 16 personalities, but it wouldn't be easy. Overall, as well as being a heart retching story of abuse and mental illness, it's also extremely heartwarming to see the motherly relationship grow between Dr. Wilbur and Sybil. It's definitely worth the read.
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| Flora Rheta Schreiber |
During Sybil, there are many references to medical practices that were relevant during the time that these events took place, including the use of Sodium Pentothal, or "Truth Serum": "From long experience Dr. Wilbur knew that abreaction--the emotional release or discharge resulting from recalling to awareness a painful experience that has been repressed because it was consciously intolerable--with Pentothal was a remarkably useful tool." (355). Though attributed with being somewhat unreliable, Sybil (or Shirley) showed great improvement. "[...]Sybil came to know a sense of freedom never before had been hers. Pentothal, a barbiturate that is both an anesthetic and a hypnotic, had conferred the sensation of feeling perfectly well--an experience Sybil had never had before." (355). After her patient's growing dependence upon the Pentothal, Dr. Wilbur tried basic hypnosis, which another popular treatment used by Psychoanalysts at this time. "Her patient was a hysteric. Since the time of Charcot and Freud hysterics were known to be readily hypnotizable. Dr. Wilbur decided at least to investigate this technique. Before she had become a psychoanalyst, she had used hypnosis successfully with other patients." (384).
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| The real Dr. Cornelia Wilbur |
While reading, I found myself asking a few questions. The main one was: Why, if everyone in the town of Willow Corners knew that Sybil's mother was unstable, why did no one do something? Or, why did her extended family not intervene more than what they did? On top of these, I have to bring up the question of: If the use of Pentothal was a proper choice? Obviously knowing it's addictive properties, why would Dr. Wilbur still administer it instead of going to hypnosis right way? Another question was: How would Sybil be treated today with far more technologically advanced practices in place? Finally, I asked the question of: What would a psychologist under another discipline think of her case and what would they do to help her? Just having a psychoanalyst only gave one point of view on how to handle such a baffling case.
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All in all, this book was an amazing read. At first, I wasn't sure t would fit with what I wanted my topic to be, but I was dead wrong. It's absolutely perfect. Along with insight into how psychology was functioning at this time in history, it also offered a look into the world of one person with Multiple Identity Disorder--or Dissociative Identity Disorder today--and that one person's struggle to become whole again. It's definitely guided my ideas and now I have one period of time down for this project.
Annotation:
Schreiber, Flora Rheta. Sybil. Chicago: Regnery, 1973. Print
After numerous occurrences of "missing time", Sybil Isabel Dorsett (The real woman this narrative being based off of is named Shirley Ardell Mason), a graduate student at Columbia University seeks help. Though the incident itself was nothing new, it's how much time that has passed which worries Sybil. After not recovering in the care of her parents, she eventually goes to a Psychologist by the name of Cornelia Wilbur. Nothing appears out of the ordinary at first. Sybil Isabel Dorsett is nothing more than a closed off, depressed individual. This is, however, until Sybil changes into someone else after a moment of extreme stress. Dr. Wilbur notices this, and is surprised. Sybil, as it turns out, is a split personality. This, however, is only the surface. Sybil, ends up having 16 separate personalities, 14 women and 2 men.The book is an excellent blend of storytelling and actual facts. It is a bit on the psychodynamic side of treatment but still offered a good amount of info.This fits well with my research by showing one specific case of how a person was treated for mental illness during this time.
After numerous occurrences of "missing time", Sybil Isabel Dorsett (The real woman this narrative being based off of is named Shirley Ardell Mason), a graduate student at Columbia University seeks help. Though the incident itself was nothing new, it's how much time that has passed which worries Sybil. After not recovering in the care of her parents, she eventually goes to a Psychologist by the name of Cornelia Wilbur. Nothing appears out of the ordinary at first. Sybil Isabel Dorsett is nothing more than a closed off, depressed individual. This is, however, until Sybil changes into someone else after a moment of extreme stress. Dr. Wilbur notices this, and is surprised. Sybil, as it turns out, is a split personality. This, however, is only the surface. Sybil, ends up having 16 separate personalities, 14 women and 2 men.The book is an excellent blend of storytelling and actual facts. It is a bit on the psychodynamic side of treatment but still offered a good amount of info.This fits well with my research by showing one specific case of how a person was treated for mental illness during this time.