Sybil Exposed
Sybil Exposed
BY: KAYLA DAY
Story of Sybil (1973)
Multiple personalities case
Patient suffered from extreme abuse by her mom
Over 16 personalities
Sybil (Shirley Mason) – the patient
Cornelia Wilbur – the psychiatrist
Flora Shreiber – the author
The story of a brilliant psychiatrist who cures her patient from her several personalities and frees her from a dreadful past.
One by one “aged” each personality to Sybil’s age
1940’s and 1950’s
Female psychiatrists were not common and were often not taken seriously
Neo-Fruedians and psychoanalysis
Talk therapy
Digging into childhood memories
Trauma from childhood = psychosis
Trauma typically brought on by cruel mothers
WWII ending: soldiers returning from war
Several women losing job positions
Women and role confusion = mental illness
Shirley Mason Father
Walter Mason
Grew up in Dodge Center, Minnesota
Seventh-Day Adventist
Architect and contractor
Met his wife Mattie at age 26
Became a very active member of the church
Mother
Mattie Atkinson
Grew up a Methodist in Emmetsburg, Iowa
Married Walter 1910
Converted to Adventism after giving birth to
Shirley
Poor health
Gave birth to Shirley in 1923 after several miscarriages
Shirley’s Childhood
Make-believe and fantasy was sin
Feared Satan
Very creative
Created stories, draw, stitched
2 imaginary friends: Sam and Vicky
Day dreamed and lost in fantasies
Attended public school
Felt isolated from peers
Childhood Continued..
Lost in fantasy
Difficult distinguishing fantasy and truth
Often sick
Anxiety, obsessive with time, squinting, phobia of prints, insomnia
Compulsion to look at her hands
Dr. Flores diagnosed her with anemia and extreme loneliness.
Relationship with Mattie
Mattie had 2 sides
Active member of community, energetic, and fun
“Blues” Lethargic, called her daughter names
Shirley craved her mom’s attention
Mattie often played with dolls and games when she was not in the “blues”
Adulthood
College at Mankato State Teachers College in Minnesota
Interest in psychoanalysis
Health and anxiety worsened
Blackouts
Diagnosed with hysteria
Wanted to become art teacher in mental hospital
Cornelia Wilbur
Born in Montana
Mother: Bertie
Father: Arthur
2 brothers: Oliver and Richard
Homeschooled
Medical student in Michigan
Discouraged by parents
Very ambitious
Graduated 1930
Pursued profession as chemist
Psychiatry
Married Henry Marsh Wilbur for money
Returned to school to study psychiatry in 1934
Fascinated with hysteria
Worked in mental hospital in Omaha
Worked primarily with hysteria patients
Pontiac Michigan
Metrazol convulsive therapy
Chemical trances using barbiturates
Popular with WWII soldiers
Psychiatry Continued
1942 – back in Omaha
Assisted with lobotomies
Held private practice
Cornelia’s mentor: Dieterle
Patient with multiple personalities
Sparked Cornelia’s fascination with multiple personalities
Received an appointment July 1945
Shirley Mason
Therapy 1945
Immediate fascination with each other
Shared everything with each other
Shirley’s ambition reminded Cornelia of herself
Saw Shirley as a daughter
Cornelia gave Shirley published work to read
Horrible mothers
Disassociation of personalities
Use of hypnotism
After WWII Dr. Wilbur lost her job and had to move
Apart for 9 years
Time Apart
Shirley got a degree in English and Art
Art therapist at Porter Hospital in Denver, Colorado
Teaching job in Memphis
Also worked toward a degree in psychology
Her mother passed in 1948 of stomach cancer
Very overworked
Coped by getting lost in her fantasy world
Time Apart Continued…
Cornelia Wilbur moved to Manhattan in 1946
Worked at VA clinic
Used injections and shock therapy on veterans
Unfulfilled: studied psychoanalysis
Neo-Fruedians: “Talk therapy”
Cruel mothers brought on psychosis in children
Three Faces of Eve
Woman suffering from multiple personalities due to role confusion
Began private practice out of her home
Shirley called
Therapy: Drugs and
Trances
Shirley told Dr. Wilbur about arriving at random placed and not remembering how she got there
Prescriptions of several habit forming medications
Seconal, Demerol, Edrisal, Daprisal, Dexamyl, Equanil,
Serpatilin, Thorazine, etc…
Shirley arrived to a session as Peggy
Young, immature, and energetic
Dr. Wilbur gave Shirley injections of pentothal “truth serum” to find out more
Therapy: Personalities
Peggy Ann & Peggy Lou
Peggy Ann was an aggression version of Peggy Lou
Nicknames from her mother
Vicky
Teenage girl
Shirley’s imaginary friend from childhood
Mike
Spent time building with his dad
Helen, Mary, Clara, Marcia
These personalities only came out for people that knew about
Shirley’s case.
Therapy: Repressed
Memories
Childhood friend: John Greenwald
Dr. Wilbur uncovered Shirley’s traumatic memory that she watched John die at age 7 from a gun shot
John passed when Shirley was 17 and not by a gun
Dr. Wilbur directed conversations toward childhood trauma and her mother
Memory of being held down with a light and blanket over her, in great pain
Dr. Wilbur concluded Shirley was raped
Shirley was recalling her memory of a tonsillectomy
Use of leading questions and constantly suggested memories of abuse
Mattie is “wicked, bad, cruel… If you don’t hate her, you ought to”
Mattie had schizophrenia
Repressed Memories
Continued…
Abuse from Shirley’s mom
Ice cold enemas through the urethra
Performed sexual acts in front of Shirley
Lesbian orgies in the woods with underage girls
Hung Shirley upside down and raped her with kitchen utensils
Tied Shirley to the piano while she played
Defecated on neighbor’s lawns and made
Shirley watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaR4AwH
7bb4
Addiction
Shirley became addicted to the pentothal injections
Was experiencing body pain from all of the medications she was on and from withdrawal of pentothal
Dr. Wilbur concluded that this pain was from bringing up memories of abuse
Dr. Wilbur refused to give Shirley more injections
Shirley wrote a letter explaining that she made up the personalities to please her doctor.
Dr. Wilbur concluded that this was resistance and denial and only meant that Shirley was ready for more intensive treatment.
Dr. Herbert Spiegel
“Hypnotic Virtuosos”
People that can easily put themselves in a trance
Extremely sensitive to suggestions and creation of false memories
Took over session with Shirley when Dr. Wilbur was out of town
Did not interpret Shirley’s roles as “personalities”
It is common to create fantasies under hypnosis
SM: “Well do you want me to be Helen?”
HS: “What do you mean?”
SM: “When I’m with Dr. Wilbur she wants me to be Helen.”
Crossing Boundaries
House calls late at night and home visits on the weekends
Dr. Wilbur would come over to give late-night injections, even when Shirley resisted
Talked to Shirley about other patients
Shirley worked as Dr. Wilbur’s secretary and dog walker
Secretarial work
Crossing Boundaries Continued..
Hooked up Shirley with an art therapy position at a mental hospital
Told Shirley that she wished she was her mother
Spent the night
Assisted Shirley with moving
Dr. Wilbur paid for Shirley’s tuition, furniture, and a house pet if she agreed to let a book be written about her case
Shirley agreed
Shirley broke off an engagement with a man so that she could stay with Dr. Wilbur
Flora Schreiber’s
Childhood
Born in 1916 in Manhattan
Only child
Dad: William
Mom: Esther
Jewish immigrants
Atheists
Loved to write and play piano
Enjoyed listening to classical music with her dad
Parents were very encouraging to improve her skills and pursue her dreams
No friends throughout school
Flora’s adulthood
Attended Colombia University’s Teachers College in
1934
Studied Dramatic Arts in London
Passion for writing
Lived with her parents after graduating
Not making much money on her writings
Tried to sell work to the Cavalcade Theater but they were not interested
Became a writer for women’s magazines
Flora Meets Doctor Wilbur
Began interviewing psychiatrists and writing articles on their cases
Cases and patients did not need to be real
Flora did not bother to check the validity of these cases
Introduced to Dr. Wilbur
Wrote an article on her homosexual patient
Story did not fit what she wanted so she changed several important details and wrote a happier ending
Dr. Wilbur was very pleased
Dr. Wilbur introduced Flora to Shirley’s case and asked her to write a book.
At this point, Shirley has been in treatment for 8 years
The “Cure”
Dr. Wilbur wanted to leave New York
New job in West Virginia and got Shirley a job nearby
Realized that therapy has been going on for too long
Shirley has become too dependent on Dr. Wilbur
Knew that Flora’s book would only sell if there was a happy ending
Told Shirley it was time to get better and integrate her personalities
Shirley immediately got better
Had one seizure and never again disassociated into another personality
Sybil
Flora thought that the personalities did not have enough depth
Dr. Wilbur and Shirley created appearances and character traits for each personality
Flora went to Shirley’s hometown to conduct interviews
There were no indications of abuse from Shirley’s mother
Found that Mattie was diagnosed with anemia and depression, not schizophrenia
Was skeptical about the story but wrote the book anyways
Published
Shirley was terrified of being identified
Used the name “Sybil” to hide her identity
Dr. Wilbur wanted her identity known
Book was published in 1973
During this time, Shirley was happy as an art teacher
Dr. Wilbur was a professor in Lexington where residents were coincidentally being taken over by multiple personalities
Fame
The book became a top seller
Dr. Wilbur and Flora wanted the attention for themselves
Despised each other
Flora was fed up with the story and grew tired of protecting
Shirley’s identity
Numerous fan letters from women relating to the story
Females feeling torn between so many different roles
“Torn in all directions”
Sybil Inc
Board games, movie, t-shirts
Implications
1970’s: Primal therapy
Repressed painful memories as children led to issues in adult life
“Encouraged people to sob, roll on the floor, and scream bloodcurdling accusations against their parents”
Concerns about child abuse
Patients came flooding to Dr. Wilbur for help with disassociations
Multiple Personalities Disorder was added to the
DSM in 1980
1980’s: Epidemic of accusations against teachers, parents and childcare workers
Children claiming that it did not happen, meant it DID happen
Implications
Before Sybil there were less than 200 cases of multiple personalities
By 1984, there was anywhere from 25,000 to 7 million patients with this disorder
Celebrities: Roseanne Barr
1992: False Memory Syndrome Foundation
Parents were being accused of abuse that did not take place
Backlash against MPD
Warnings against hypnotism and creation of false memories
Therapist were being sued
Later Years..
Flora passed in 1988 of a heart attack and stroke
Never wrote another top seller as popular as Sybil
Next big story put her in debt
Dr. Wilbur passed in 1992 from a heart attack
Dr. Wilbur and Shirley remained close friends up until her death
Several people found out about Sybil’s true identity
Shirley spent the rest of her years in hiding
Passed in 1998 of cancer at age 75
Discussion
Female psychiatrists were uncommon and not taken very seriously in the mid 1900’s. Several parts of Cornelia Wilbur’s practice was clearly questionable and unethical. Do you think that Dr.
Wilbur had ill intentions when working with Shirley, or do you believe that she was a victim of this period in history?
What are your thoughts about Flora Schreiber’s decision to continue writing the book after finding out that the childhood abuse may not have taken place? If any of the 3 women knew of the implications that the story would have, do you think that they would have went ahead with the book?
