SkeptoidSybil's Personalities - eNotes.comShirley Mason: The Woman Who Stunned the World With 16.

The story of a woman purported to have Multiple Personality Syndrome was told in the book and movie "Sybil".

Sally Field played a woman with Multiple Personality Syndrome in a TV movie.The book upon which the movie was based was actually based on a real person.The idea of Multiple Personality Syndrome was brought to the attention of the general public, as well as the controversy which followed.In her later years, debate raged over whether the woman who was based on her was faking the whole thing, or if she had some other disorder that compelled her to fake them.The person at the center was suffering from a real illness.Today we're going to look at what that condition might have been, and what the true state is of our knowledge of this most shocking of mental illnesses.

She was called that by that woman.She died in 1998.She spent most of her time in therapy at the age of 30 because of emotional breakdowns.She had most of her sessions with the doctor.One day, Mason came into the office and told the doctor that she was a small girl.There were more than one personality, totaling sixteen.Their ages ranged from boys and girls to an infant.The longer they worked together, the more they realized that Mason's case was extraordinary.Within a few years, she began giving academic presentations on the case, which led to her entire professional career.Dr. Wilbur collaborated with an author to document the case.Interviews with Mason's various people were recorded.The young Mason was subjected to years of sexual and sadistic abuse by his mother, who had been hospitalized with schizophrenia.

In the 1960's, Dr. Wilbur asked his colleagues to help refine his diagnosis.She wanted to know if Mason was like her mother.Mason was seen by Dr. Spiegel for several years.He hypnotized Mason often.It was during these sessions that he realized that some of the people he'd been told were not what they said they were.The New York Review of Books interviewed Dr. Spiegel in 1997.

"Do you want me to be Helen?" Sybil asked during our regression studies.I asked, "What do you mean?"She said that when she's with Dr. Wilbur, she wants her to be Helen.I asked, "Who's Helen?"That's the name Dr. Wilbur gave me."Well, if you want to, but it's not necessary," I said.Sybil preferred not to be Helen.She felt an obligation to become another person.I realized that Dr. Wilbur was helping her identify aspects of her life, or perspectives, that she then called by name.She was converting a memory into a "personality" by naming them this way.

There is a case of multiple personality in The Three Faces of Eve, Thigpen and Cleckley's book.She liked that book very much.I believe that if the therapist encouraged her to display her multiple personality, she would be able to express her agonies and stresses in life.

The author reviewed Dr. Spiegel's notes for her book.

Over the course of many years of treatment that violated practically every ethical standard of practice for mental health practitioners, Sybil's sixteen personalities popped up.

Dr. Spiegel was asked to co-author the book with them.They were going to publish it in a book because Dr. Wilbur couldn't get it published in professional journals.

I didn't see her "personalities" as game-playing.I told them that calling her a multiple personality was not consistent with what I knew about her.The man got in a fight.She said that if we don't call it a multiple personality, we're not going to have a book.The publishers want it to sell, otherwise it won't.They called him a multiple personality.

There was no reference to the substantial role that Dr. Spiegel played in Mason's therapy in the book, and many other parts of the tale were changed or omitted.She had suggested most of Mason's false memories of abuse using sodium pentothal, even though she had never actually done any hypnosis at that point in her career.The book was a pop horror story, a sensationalized and fictionalized account that exploited and exaggerated a real patient's condition, painting her as a freakish and frightening psycho.The author found a letter that Mason had written to her analyst in 1959 and included it.

I am not going to tell you that there is nothing wrong.Both of us know there is.It is not what I have led you to believe.I don't have any more than one personality.I don't have a double to help me.I am all of them.I have been lying about them.The problem with the dissociations is not that they don't exist, but that there is something wrong.

However, Schreiber flipped this around rather than taking it for the true confession it purported to be, and wrote that this was another of Sybil's hysterical personality talking and that she had no memory of the two days during which she'd written the letter.

Six million copies of the book were sold in its first four years.Multiple Personality Syndrome diagnoses went from 200 worldwide to thousands of new cases each year.The disease of the day was trendy and new.

The book had other effects.Mason was the "Sybil" of the book, bringing a lot of unwanted attention to the local crazy lady.Mason moved to Kentucky and lived near Dr. Wilbur, who had accepted an academic position there.Mason began to work as an art instructor and even opened a small art gallery after the two remained friends.When she contracted Parkinson's disease, Mason moved in to take care of her.Mason followed her friend after she died.

The book and movie helped popularize Multiple Personality Syndrome in 1980.The diagnosis was in the DSM-III.It remained in the DSM-IV after its name was changed to Dissociative Identity Disorder and its definition was revised to recognize that there are no actual alternate personality.

The DSM-V revises the diagnosis even further, combining it with Pathological Possession Trance, in which patients believe themselves to be possessed by other identities, demons, etc.Dissociative Identity Disorder is the inability to maintain a consistent conscious presence in your true identity.The main reason that she sought help was because she had no recollection of the previous few days when she was at Columbia University.Dissociative Identity Disorder is caused by dissociation with gaps of time.

Even though we now know that that's almost certainly not the truth, we still have the fictional crazy lady with multiple personality quirks who was born in 1923.She is described by dry language in the DSM which may or may not be her real diagnosis.

She is best served by the recollections of the person she was, not the book and movie.She may have suffered from a mental disorder.She had an IQ of 174.She was an artist and a teacher.It's possible that Shirley Mason was a victim of both improper psychiatric care and of greedy authors.

Another surprise was revealed in the archives.They collaborated not just to document and promote a case study, but with great care as well.The contract they used to form Sybil Incorporated split profits into three equal ways.The three sisters of Sybil Incorporated planned an entire brand before the book was published.

Mason had been without means of support while the book was still being written and no money had yet been made.Dr. Wilbur paid her rent.Mason's support network existed because she allowed the character of "Sybil" to continue.She staked her professional reputation on the multiple personality diagnosis and now has a book contract.They all had too much at stake to think that their preferred diagnosis was wrong.

The three were beyond a point where they could consider that.Thousands of patients who were initially diagnosed with a condition now believed to have been a lie were affected by Sybil.Before so many women were labeled with Multiple Personality Syndrome, psychiatry might have caught up with dissociative disorders.

The article is called "Dunning, B."The personalities of a person.Skeptoid is a show.Skeptoid Media was published on 7 May.There is a website.2 Jun 2021.There are four episodes of "Skeptoid."

APA.DSM-IV-TR is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.The American Psychological Association was founded in 2000.There was a count of 519-535.

"Sybil - The Making of a Disease: An Interview with Dr. Herbert Spiegel" was written by Borch-Jacobsen.The New York Review of Books.The date is 24 April.Volume 44, Number 7 was published in 1997.

I was hacked."Multiple personality disorder and its host."The history of human sciences.Volume 5, Number 2, was published on 1 May 1992.

The story behind the famous multiple personality case was exposed by Nathan.The Free Press is in New York.

There is a diagnosis and treatment for multiple personality disorder.The Guilford Press was published in New York in 1989.

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