Sybil (book)

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Sybil is a book written by Flora Rheta Schreiber in 1973 about a woman named Shirley Ardell Mason, who is referred to in the book by the pseudonym Sybil Dorsett. Mason was born on January 25, 1923 in Dodge Center, Minnesota. Her story is the most famous case of multiple personality disorder (dissociative identity disorder) on record. A movie was also made in 1976 based on the book, starring Sally Field in the title role and Joanne Woodward as her therapist, Dr. Cornelia B. Wilbur.

In the early 1950s, Mason was a substitute teacher and a student at Columbia University. She had long suffered from blackouts and emotional breakdowns, and finally entered psychotherapy with Wilbur, a Freudian psychiatrist. Their sessions together are the basis of the book.

Mason later moved to Lexington, Kentucky where she taught art classes and ran an art gallery out of her home for many years. She died of breast cancer on February 26, 1998. A nonfiction book and film by psychiatric historian Peter Swales are planned about Mason and her relationship with Wilbur.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the book, "Sybil" (a name Schreiber gave Mason to protect her privacy) is a patient with severe issues of social anxiety and memory loss. After extended therapy Wilbur discovers that Sybil has 16 separate personalities. She uses hypnosis and sodium amytal interviews to encourage Sybil's various selves to communicate and reveal information about her life. Some of her "alters" are:

  • Sybil: Substitute grade school teacher who often experiences "missing time."
  • Peggy Lou and Peggy Ann: Both about nine years old, the Peggys apparently originated as a single alter, "Peggy Louisiana" (the name which Sybil's mother had initially wanted to give her daughter). Peggy Lou is bold and brassy, Peggy Ann more often frightened. Both often talk incoherently and repeat phrases over and over. Peggy Lou breaks glass when she is upset.
  • Vicky: Proper and formal to a fault. Vicky speaks fluent French, and is aware of everything that goes on among the different personalities. (In the film, Vicky spoke stereotypical high-school French, but clearly believed she was speaking it well.)
  • Vanessa: An artistic and beautiful piano player. In the film she befriends Richard, a man who lives in a neighboring apartment. (The character of Richard was created for the film.)
  • Marcia: Sybil's depressive and suicidal personality. Marcia unsuccessfully attempts to kill herself, although she knows that killing the body will result in the death of all the selves.
  • Ruthie: a 2-3 year old who enjoys crayon drawing.

Wilbur decided that Shirley Mason's multiple personalities resulted from childhood abuse at the hands of her mother, who was apparently schizophrenic. While the mother's instability was readily confirmed by Mason's contemporaries, the veracity of specific incidents of physical and sexual abuse related in the book remain controversial. Mason's therapy records have never been released, and both she and Wilbur are deceased.

According to people who knew Mason's family in Dodge Center, her mother was in fact given to bizarre behavior and controlled Mason very strictly. Her grandmother was kind to her, but unable to do anything about the treatment she received at her mother's hands. Her father, although at times loving, cast a blind eye towards the many different injuries inflicted upon Sybil by her mother. The family were Seventh-day Adventist, a religion that was apparently regarded with some suspicion by Dodge Center residents because of its superficial resemblance to Judaism.

[edit] Controversy

In 1998, Robert Rieber and John Jay of the College of Criminal Justice declared Wilbur's account of Mason's childhood to be a sham. They rediagnosed Mason as an "extremely suggestible hysteric" and claimed Wilbur had manipulated her in order to secure a book deal. However, neither Rieber nor Jay are psychiatrists or psychologists, and they never interviewed Mason personally. However, their supposition that she did not suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder was later supported by Dr. Herbert Spiegel. Spiegel saw Mason for several sessions while Wilbur was on vacation. His interpretation of her statements at that time caused him to believe that Wilbur was manipulating her into behaving as a multiple when she was not. He has also stated that he suspects Wilbur of having publicized Mason's case for financial gain.[1]

Dr. Leah Dickstein, who worked with Mason in her later years, stands by her assessment of Mason as a multiple. Professionals and staff at Wilbur's Lexington, Kentucky clinic confirm that Mason was multiple, and that she attempted to integrate several times, without success. Periodically, according to Wilbur and other professionals who worked with her, Mason would deny that she was multiple.

Mason's case remains controversial; Wilbur was apparently a polarizing figure, either admired or intensely disliked by many of her colleagues. Her methods came under sharp criticism during and especially after her lifetime. Supposedly, Wilbur's personal papers were to be unsealed as of 2005, but their contents have not been made available to the general public. There is a series of recorded tapes that were made by Wilbur of her sessions with Mason. Some of these tapes were accessed, with the permission of Mason and Wilbur, by the screenwriter Stuart Stern, who adapted the book for the film Sybil. In any case, these are not Mason's therapy records, provided Wilbur even kept any; she was reportedly careless about this area of her work. Due to privacy laws, it is very unlikely that Mason's therapy records will ever be released to the public.

[edit] References

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