When was sybil published

Please enter the message. Please verify that you are not a robot. Would you also like to submit a review for this item? You already recently rated this item. Your rating has been recorded. Write a review Rate this item: 1 2 3 4 5. Preview this item Preview this item. Cornelia Wilbur who did the first psychoanalysis of multiple personality. Allow this favorite library to be seen by others Keep this favorite library private.

Save Cancel. Find a copy in the library Finding libraries that hold this item The story of Sybil Isabel Dorsett and her psychoanalyst Dr. Reviews User-contributed reviews Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers. Be the first. Within a few weeks, [Dr. Wilbur] asked Shirley if she'd like to write a book with her about the case. One of the drugs Dr. Wilbur administered was Thorazine, "an anti-psychotic that can have very, very strong side effects, including hallucinations," Nathan said.

They're like nightmares, but when you wake up from them, you believe that the material you fantasized really happened. Nathan discovered the truth by poring over the papers of Flora Schreiber, the journalist who collaborated on the book.

Her papers, which included thousands of pages of therapy material between Dr. Wilbur and Shirley Mason, had been sealed until , because it wasn't until then that it was known whether Shirley was alive or dead. Though Sybil ends happily, the woman who inspired the story did not. Shirley became a barbiturate addict, and was heavily dependent on Wilbur, who paid her rent, gave her clothes and money, and supplied her with drugs.

Nathan likened the relationship to that of a junkie to her pusher. Nathan speculates that Dr. Wilbur's motivations were based on the fact that she never had children. Wilbur wanted a daughter. And I think that was the real dynamic of the relationship. In therapy, Shirley would imply that the personalities were generated because something terrible had happened to her.

Journalist Flora Schreiber got involved because although Dr. Wilbur believed the case would make her famous, she wasn't a good writer. Eventually, as Schreiber started fact-checking the story, she began to doubt its veracity. But by then she had already been paid an advance, and when she confronted Dr. It begins in the introduction that "Debbie Nathan gives proof that the allegedly true story was largely fabricated.

It portends to have all the makings of a great fiction book; greed, sex, gore and maybe that's what this book was in all actuality - Fiction Throughout the book you meet the individuals of the person known as Sybil, Dr. The style is confusing. The way she moves between people it's not easy to connect the dots unless you actually take her at her word that this is truth. Some of the historic facts about the women are rather interesting if it is true.

Learning about how they grew up and what challenges they faced actually made the book Sybil more believable to me. Unfortunately, what I see is pieces of truth, interwoven with statements of the author's opinion and comments made to capture the reader with a sense of disgust.

For example, when the author discusses the "truth" of Dr. Wilbur taking part in the early days of performing lobotomies, she uses this description, "Now she was also drilling holes in their skulls and turning their brains into pulp". Anyone familiar with the history of medicine knows that the practice of medicine has come a long way from its early days. Remember blood-letting using leeches to drain people's blood to cure disease.

The author takes facts out of context and makes them seem like you should be aghast. The author continues this theme throughout the book even into her notes pages. For example, instead of saying "Mason's diary entry" she uses the terminology "All so-called diary material".

This shows the disbelief and utter disdain the author has for Sybil although she will tell you that she believes that she was misguided and used by Dr. Wilbur and Flora Rheta Shreiber. The author does not only try to debunk the Sybil story, she appears to have an agenda against anyone that believes in D. Ironically, as I was doing research on the veracity of the book, I came across quite a heated debate between the author and members of the ISSTD.

The author had been accused of portraying things improperly in the book and was not taking criticism well. This includes the fact that since the book has been out people are fact-checking the book and finding major errors in her work. This person has written a letter advising what she actually stated to the author.

All in all, if you read the book critically and don't buy into the author's manipulation of facts and remember that none of the three woman she tries to condemn are here to dispute any of her claims, I think the book actually can be taken one of two ways Otherwise, don't get caught up in all of the out of context "facts", the glaring agendas and the inflammatory language.

If you want to use this to fire yourself up Better yet, get it from the library so you don't have to give her any more cash. It's not worth it. Otherwise, stick to something better because this really isn't worth the trouble Oct 28, Nancy rated it it was amazing Shelves: biography , science. I was quite taken with the book Sybil when I read it years ago. It seemed to present a plausible explanation for a run-away semi-street teen I knew who could easily be hypnotised into various supposedly past-life personalities.

Sometimes these personalities even broke through on their own. It was kind of scary to be around her at times. The book Sybil presented such "others" as multiple personalities created by childhood trauma.

The scientific trappings and cure made for a neat package that appe I was quite taken with the book Sybil when I read it years ago. The scientific trappings and cure made for a neat package that appealed to me and many others. The happy ending gave me hope that the teen I had known may have recovered and was leading a full productive life. As it turns out, the story is not true.

While it is possible that the real life Sybil, Shirley Mason, believed it was true, Ms. Nathan presents clear evidence that elements of her story could not possibly have happened and that the methods used to bring out Shirley's other personalities could just as easily be used to implant false memories. The book can be summed up in a single sentence: " Sybil is not a true story. Nathan's biographies of the three women involved in writing the Sybil book and the changing world they matured in is fascinating.

Feb 28, Jenny Brown rated it it was amazing. A brilliant book that should be read by anyone who trusts a psychiatrist, because they didn't stop being like the woman profiled in this book when the 80s ended. I grew up among the psychiatrists of NYC in the s, as my father worked with them, so nothing you would tell me about how screwed up and sexually abusive they were would surprise me.

I also got involved with a very popular local therapist in the s who was planting false memories in her patients using hypnosis. What an extremely u A brilliant book that should be read by anyone who trusts a psychiatrist, because they didn't stop being like the woman profiled in this book when the 80s ended. What an extremely unpleasant experience! Because I'm a novelist and spend a lot of time in a hypnotic state when I make up completely fictional stories, I recognized the state the therapist induced with her hypnotic technique.

I also recognized that the scenes she was making me recall, though vivid, were no more real than scenes I'd invented for my novels that took place on other planets. But for someone who wasn't familiar with the landscape of imagination, it would have been easy to believe that the scenes evoked by these dominating, abuse-obsessed therapists were real--and that would be psychologically devastating. This book does an excellent job of showing just how this kind of emotionally manipulative, borderline-personality therapist goes about finding weak people and exploiting them for their own selfish needs.

This is a disturbing book, but one worth reading before you get involved with any therapist who "specializes" in childhood abuse. My experience had been that such people often charge far more than peers, and feel entitled to profit from the harm done to children.

Their profiting is, all too often, yet more abuse those ex-child victims have to suffer. Getting back to Sibyl, the off-the-wall psycho abuse scenarios implanted in people with emotional issues by these abusive therapists did a real disservice not only to their victims but to the many children who really were, and still are, abused by adults, because it makes it that much harder for them to be heard and helped.

If you do need therapy for this kind of problem, look for therapists who do not make you relive the abuse or pump you for juicy details. Successful healing from abuse involves getting in touch with the strong parts of your personality and learning to feel like a safe adult who can protect yourself. Good therapists help you be stronger and focus on how you live in the present. If yours isn't doing that, fire them.

Back in I read a book called Sybil. Starting in and continuing on through today millions of people worldwide have read that book. The only difference is now there's a disclaimer on the book.

Sybil tells the story of, well "Sybil" a pseudonym and how she had "blank spots", "lost time". She'd black out and wake up days later in a different city. I, like I suppose most others who read the book was moved by the abuse suffered by, "Sybil". It was horrific. Under hypnosis "Sybil" recalled years of torture by her mother as her passive father turned a blind eye and ear to it all. This abuse caused her to develop multiple personalities.

The records of the sessions between "Sybil" and her doctor had been sealed. Then a, resourceful researcher found who "Sybil" was Shirley Ardell Mason and that she was dead. This book by Debbie Mason is about what was found there and in later research from other sources once the search started. The bottom line is and it's no spoiler since I assume anyone reading this knows the subject That book was fiction.

This is a fairly interesting read. The first several chapters will I suspect be more interesting to the female audience as it's aimed directly toward them.

Debbie Nathan is known as a "feminist journalist". The early chapters go back and look at the lives of these three women so much so I began to wonder if we were going to be getting the argument that the fraud perpetrated was understandable. She didn't really go there. Aside from changing the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder from so rare as to be considered almost an anomaly to common Dr.

Wilbur changed the idea of what may cause it. She set up the treatment and study and it became set in stone to use hypnosis to "uncover" lost memories. Also there was an epidemic of people mostly women according to the writer who started coming to psychiatrists thinking they had multiple personalities or were "dissociative".

This ties into the writer's premise of women being under "role strain" and that the book Sybil placed the possibility of dissociative problems in their mind this is a quick and dirty explanation and not precise at all. For more detail of course Parents, teachers, daycare workers all eventually began to be prosecuted for these offenses. Hurt and frightened parents and others exclaimed they never hurt their children but for years YEARS this fell on deaf ears. How many remember the McMartin preschool trial?

I do It started in the early '80s. It the trial went on for seven years after it finally got started. It destroyed lives, ruined reputations and got HUGE news coverage. A preschool was supposed to be the home of a Satanic cult that raped and tortured the children of the preschool.

None of the children could remember this however without professionals counseling them using dolls so the children could show using the dolls or be shown on the dolls what had happened. Many of the children, now adults have recanted their testimony and tried to explain how they were instructed.

A wave of panic swept across much of America's heartland that satanic cults were torturing children The final chapters run down the story of the women. The two of them seemed to have developed a strange sort of codependency. The book isn't the best I've read and it wasn't as enthralling as I expected it to be. Many people according to the writer mostly women seem to have taken the book Sybil very to heart and wondered if possibly they had hidden personalities and so on. I was touched by the story of the cruelties heaped on a child.

My interest here was in the story of the fraud. Also, as I was reading this book a strange irony struck me I had to stop and think about this one I skimmed much of this book and followed the actual story of what happened more than I did the speculation on the causes behind the fraud. Some will undoubtedly find these parts far more interesting. Take a look and see what you think. At the very least it's an amazing story of a book that changed attitudes all over the world and spawned epidemics of psychological problems.

Nov 05, Wanda rated it it was ok. How to review this book. First, I am an informed reviewer in that I have a doctorate and have worked for many years in the mental health field, both in academe and clinically. Second, as any good scientist, I will put my biases out there. I think that MPD is a bunch of hooey that has never been shown empirically to be anything other than behavior.

I read this book because I have published in the scholarly literature on the hooey and hysteria and extremism that has taken place around this ve Hmm. I read this book because I have published in the scholarly literature on the hooey and hysteria and extremism that has taken place around this very slippery construct that some people believe exists. However, this is not about belief.

It is about science and the fact is that although dissociation is a well established phenomenon, MPD DID is not and has never been. Although, the true believers, like the vaccines cause autism bunch, will continue to insist that the construct exists and cite all sorts of anecdotal evidence to support their claim. I'm sure that the true believers will jump all over this review, the way that they jumped all over Acocella's book. But they really do not have a good position on which to stand.

They generally ignore what is pointed out by way of anything but their own position, and they continue to point to research done by the MPD adherents, which is flawed and has been vetted through people who believe as they do.

The brain scan stuff has been thoroughly debunked, and no one can say that MPD is anything other than a set of behaviors, whether iatrogenically induced or not. It is not even considered a diagnosis in some countries. Anecdotes are not research. Moreover this review is about the book, not about the diagnosis.

Why did I read this book? Because I wanted to read about the context of and the history of the time that this fraud was perpetuated. In that regard, the author did a very nice job, although I thought that she should have also cited and referenced: Acocella, Joan This was an excellent overview of the MPD, and in some ways a better book.

Acocella was far more meticulous in her documentation than Mason's, although Acocella took the same hits that Mason is getting from the true believer crowd. This book was an exposee. It was not scientific research and therefore should not be held to the same standards as a scholarly research study.

That it was subjective all research is to one degree or another, especially qualitative research is not really germane. Mason was out to tell the story of what a monstrous psychiatrist did to a woman who may have had a physiological condition that went untreated. To say that Connie Wilbur was unethical, even by the standards of psychiatry in the s, is an understatement. She was a monster -- worse than what she made "Sybil's" mother out to be.

Projection perhaps? This book is about Wilbur and Schreiber and their unfettered ambition and in exposing them, Nathan does a pretty good job. Where I think that she falters a bit is in failing to discuss WHY the diagnosis is so controversial and how the research into this phenomenon is so flawed.

Most lay people and some people who should know better have a very poor understanding of what constitutes scientific inquiry and the nature of solid research versus anecdotal "evidence" and pseudoscience.

If she brought up the issue of the research and how it has not stood up to scientific scrutiny, then she should have used the opportunity to follow up with a teachable moment. The book would also have benefited by interviews of some widely respected psychiatric researchers.

Although there were a few interviews with professionals who had known Wilbur, interviewing the community of professionals who help bring down the MPD fiasco of the 80s and 90s would have helped. A few interviews with sociologists or social psychologists would also have helped; especially to bolster the hypothesis that this hysteria was a function of repressed women coming of age at a time when men dominated. I, frankly, found this to be unsupported by any facts and highly speculative.

I also found her documentation to be annoyingly scant and her getting into the heads of people who are long dead to be less than convincing. If what Connie or Flora thought is based on diaries, then really she should have indicated that. It would also have benefited by someone from the medical field's editing skills.

The author writes that Flora died of a stroke and a heart attack. Uh, I don't think so. She died from one or the other, though she may have had both. Sloppy spots like this should be avoided if one is to be taken seriously as a conveyor of facts.

Overall, the book is flawed, but well written. I did learn something from it that I did not know in terms of how abusive Connie Wilbur was with respect to her patient s - and even in light of the times - how unethical. All in all, it was a cliff notes kind of approach to a very difficult subject, and it could have been a far more rigorous study of a shocking case of psychiatric malpractice and a phenomenon that helped light the fire of extremism that damaged untold women.

View all 4 comments. May 21, Kelly H. Maybedog rated it liked it Shelves: what-nonfiction , when-review , what-psychology. I was in high school when I read the book but looking back from and my own age and experiences, I'm quite surprised anyone still believes this book to be true.

The abuse is so outrageous and diverse nothing makes sense. It's like someone tried to think of every horrific thing anyone could every do to someone and fit it into the In the course of reading this book, I went back and looked at summaries for the original Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities.

It's like someone tried to think of every horrific thing anyone could every do to someone and fit it into the story. There's familar methods of childhood physical and sexual abuse but then there are weird add ons like lesbian sex circles in the woods and Satanic cults and trying to suffocate her in a grain silo thing.

From my understanding, it wouldn't be trying, it would be succeeding. Then there are the similarities in the personalities, the similar names, and the one without a name.

The book even contains a copy of a letter "Sybil" Shirley Ardell Mason wrote to her Psychiatrist Cornelia Wilbur admitting everything was made up. Mason admitted the same thing to another psychiatrist she saw while Wilbur was out of town. I think if I read Sybil now I would have trouble reading for laughing so much at how ridiculous it is. But then, as someone who has worked with abused kids for over 12 years, I know the real thing all too well.

But this review is about Sybil Exposed, not my own observations. Nathan does a good job of presenting the information clearly and concisely. She spends way too much time in the beginning on back story, starting out before Mason is even born. And good heavens was she focused on how "rail thin" Mason was! I lost count of how many times Nathan referred to her that way.

She also includes too much of the biographies of Wilbur and the other woman in the case, the book writer Flora Schreiber. When this happens, the undiagnosed DID patient may undergo a long and frequently unsuccessful treatment for these other conditions. Finally, almost all practitioners use the standard diagnostic interviews and mental status examinations that they were taught during professional training.

Unfortunately, these standard interviews often do not include questions about dissociation, posttraumatic symptoms, or a history of psychological trauma. Although the alleged traumas may not have happened to Shirley Mason, the idea that systematic and terrible traumas provide an important potential progenitor for DID remains in the Guidelines:.

A substantial minority of DID patients report sadistic, exploitive, and coercive abuse at the hands of organized groups. This type of organized abuse victimizes individuals through extreme control of their environments in childhood and frequently involves multiple perpetrators. Organized abuse frequently incorporates activities that are sexually perverse, horrifying, and sadistic and may involve coercing the child into witnessing or participating in the abuse of others. This divide may continue down to the journal level.

For comparison, Biological Psychiatry has an Eigenfactor of 0. A lower score is, of course, entirely reasonable for a more narrowly focused journal; these focused topics might risk being caught in an echo chamber of concurring opinion to the exclusion of broader attention. Even we assume that DID is substantially more rare than the authors of the Guidelines suggest, there is still comparatively little being written about it. The numbers suggest that DID has never been the topic of heavy research attention, and the attention it once had has waned.

This count also includes studies that feature modern methodologies such as neuroimaging that either demonstrated no measurable differences between control and experimental groups or have been met with concerns regarding validity,5 in addition to results that conclude that DID is not a scientifically well-supported construct. The future The DSM-5 process may limit rather than foster some of this discussion.