Rating: 
Summary: If books were pie...
Review: ...this one would be á la mode.Not posessing the, well, adult-ness that the other readers clearly have, it's rather hard to review with such vocabulary and deep understanding of the book. I'll try, though: I haven't read this book in a quite a while, as my copy got lost somewhere in the black hole that inhabits all schools; consequently some of the details are a bit fuzzy. Still, the quality of Ms. Schreiber's writing remains superb in my mind, and the attention to detail (although, I must admit, some of that detail is incredibly disturbing, but I suppose without it one wouldn't understand what Sybil went through and how hard it was to recover) was amazing. The sketches in the middle of the book made it obvious how starkly different each personality was from the other: look at the difference between, say, the Christmas cards to Dr. (oh great, it's been long enough I can't remember her name) what's-her-name. All in all, a five out of five
Rating:
Summary: like nothing else
Review: I originally read the book because I'd heard so much about it, seeing that I'm named Sybil aswell. I wanted to read about this other infamous Sybil. Little did I know I'd be drawn into this extraordinary story that was made more interesting by the fact that is was true. The descriptions were amazing and you feel such a compassion for the main characters as you get through the book. I've never read anything of this genre and it was something I'm glad I read and remain thinking about it long after I finished it.
Rating:
Summary: Sybil-a Great read
Review: The book Sybil is a book that you can get caught up in. The book will take you to the reality where little is known or been exploraed about mutably personalities. Twist and turns go throughout the book. With vivid descriptions of the personalities and of the flash backs to childhood. Despite the fact that connections are sometimes hard to make to the book, you will be sweep up into the action, pain, sorrow and anger of the book as you learn how one woman worked against many odds to over come her illness and put her life back together. With the troubled mother and the ignorant father makes the plot the thicker as we go into the depths of the cause for the multiply personalities. As the book progresses we see in to the thoughts, feelings, and memories of the alternating personalities. A points this story is riveting, the next making you tear up and other times just plain mad. This is a young adult and up book. No other book can compare to this book about multiply personalities. We learn from this book that the past affects and can sometimes cause physiological problems. Sybil is truly a well worth reading book.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: This is an unbelievable story of a troubled life of a woman. So vivid and real, I could not put this book down. A life told by many personalities of a woman who went thru literal hell with her mentally ill mother. This book is not only for people in the field of psychology. Although the first few pages are a little hard to get into, once you get past them you will get sucked into a life that one can only have nightmares about. I read this book 3 times!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Christine's Favorite
Review: What would it be like to be sixteen different people and not know you were? How would you feel if you were in one place then in another a second later, but realized a week went by? In the book Sybil, a young woman has to deal with this disease of having sixteen personalities and doesn't realize this. A phychiatrist learns what caused the personalities to come out and develops relationships with each one. Flora Rheta Schreiber makes you feel like you are actually there and uses a lot of detail. This book is one of the best books I have ever read. Follow the journey of Sybil on the road to become one person again.
Rating:
Summary: Complex and engrossing
Review: One of the most famous multiple-personality cases of all time, Sybil's story is captivating and gripping. Definitely recommended for anyone interested in abnormal psychology. Also read "When Rabbit Howls" by Truddi Chase.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting
Review: This book is a riveting true story revolving around a young
woman's two decade harrowing struggle to become one. Sybil,
an multiple personality disorder victim, is the result of an
abusive schizophrenic mother whose abusive rituals included
the painful, disgusting process of hanging Subil suspended from
the ceiling and scarring her... In order to overcome
her overwhelming emotions, Sybil creates a vast collectionof totally separate, individual personalities, which gradually
develops into a staggering total of 16. For years, Sybil
vents her many different emotions into each of her categorized
personalities, some of which are Mary (a religious figure,
portrayed after Sybil's actual "saintly" grandmother), Peggy
Lou (a tempestuous, confident fire-breathing country bumpkin),
Vicky ( the stylish, sophisticated "keeper" of the "girls"),
Venessa ( an impressive musical talent ), and even two male
figures, modeled after her father's covetted sons. When Sybil
becomes so disoriented in the tug of war between personalities,
she must get treatment. Dr. Wilbur becomes Sybil's guiding light
in her intense journey for oneness, trying to reveal the
secret behind Sybil's inexplicable abrupt personality "switches"
through years of psychological therapy. Eventually, Sybil
does claim victory over her disorder and becomes one again.
This is the most incredible, most riveting true story I've ever
read! You'll be devoured by its pages, it is so all-consuming.
"Sybil" is so amazing, one must question its truth. What a
great book! Not only is it just a literary read, it is definitely an incredible human experience! It palpitates with
substance and beauty, and presents richly woven, detailed
characters. Absolutely unbelievable! Sybil rules!
Rating: 
Summary: a winner, despite some strong criticisms i have
Review: the winning sides of this book are obvious: well-detailed, interesting/fascinating, good writing, insightful, clear, ground-breaking, etc. a great story about a girl with a horribly abusive childhood who spends a fair chunk of her adult life trying to recover from it with the help of a dedicated, intelligent, talented, serious therapist. it also shows how amazingly creative sybil as a child had to be on an unconscious level to not become absolutely crazy. so all these positives aside, here are my criticisms: mainly they're with dr. wilbur. she sets herself up (or the author - dr. wilbur's buddy - sets her up) as PERFECT. well, i just don't buy it. many times she did things throughout sybil's analysis that i consider very suspect, and i notice that each time she does them she and/or the author make a quick decisive point of defending them as "necessary". such as: when the doctor decides she needs to "speed up" sybil's analysis early on by telling the sybil personality about the existence of the other personalities. it freaks sybil out (not entirely unexpectedly) and later the doctor "has to" go over to sybil's house and talk her down - after giving her a tranquilizer! so much for the doctor being against medication! and the doctor takes NO responsibility for having in large part caused the breakdown. i had a funny feeling the doctor betrayed sybil's other personalities' confidences to meet the doctor's own needs. perhaps she felt incompetent that the analysis was going "too slow." or perhaps she was just impatient and wanted to zap the treatment forward. or perhaps, HEAVEN FORBID, she had a twinge of sadistic motives: maybe she was pissed off at sybil for being so STUCK and wanted to break her down a little bit, attack her defenses head on. this i would not doubt! after all, dr. wilbur is human, and if i felt this 450 page book dragged at points, how the hell did dr. wilbur feel, sitting through over 2000 session hours and who knows how many extra hours!
other things the doctor did that were funky: becoming friends with sybil? what's up with that? talk about bad boundaries. of course, the doctor could easily defend her bad boundaries by just hiding behind being a wonderful, loving, caring, compassionate therapist - BUT I DON'T BUY IT ENTIRELY. i think dr. wilbur was trying to prove in some unconscious way to sybil (or to herself) that she, the doctor, was the real opposite of sybil's mom. perhaps the doctor was trying to defend against some of her own feelings of being LIKE sybil's mom. and by the way, sybil's exceedingly manipulative behavior at times might drive even the best of us to feel pissed off at her and want to get even at some level. but not dr. wilbur - oh no! - did you notice that the one feeling she never has toward sybil is ANGER - let alone HATRED?! i think the doctor couldn't handle those NASTY feelings within herself and simply defended herself against them by ACTING THEM OUT and then calling them therapeutically necessary.
other examples of this: getting sybil hooked on sodium pentathol to "help" her treatment. and what about that little line of getting sybil "shock therapy." yeah, right! and by the way, i read on the internet after finishing the book about the outcome of sybil's life: she followed dr. wilbur down to lexington kentucky where the two lived nearby...happily ever after...as the best of friends. what's up with that? to me that's the sign of a therapist who could NOT LET GO OF HER PATIENT. talk about bad boundaries!
Rating:
Summary: Superb--But Is It Real?
Review: SYBIL is the incredible biography of a woman, Sybil Isabel Dorsett, who suffered from sixteen different personalities all inhabiting one body (known as multiple-personality disorder). Ever since she had been a little girl, she always felt that time was funny: people would tell her she had done things that she couldn't remember doing, or would find that things around her seemed unfamiliar, and had gaps in her memory. Ever since she was a little girl, she had been petrified of her mother, and sustained many mysterious injuries. When she is sent home from college due to extreme anxiety, depression, and poor health, Sybil is sent to see a psychiatrist. Dr. Wilbur offers the promise of a restoration of mental health and happiness, yet when Sybil's mother breaks off treatment, Sybil feels hopelessly rejected. After her mother's death, Sybil determines to save up enough money and seek out Dr. Wilbur's help. It is during the process of psychoanalysis, that Sybil incidentally discovers that her body is inhabited by Peggy Lou, Peggy Anne, Marie Antoinette Scharleau, Vanessa, Marcia, Mary Lou Baldwin, Clara, Sybil Anne Dorsette, and many others--including two men. All of these personalities are different identifications with the traumatic events of Sybil's life, and each one of them takes over when Sybil blacks out, so that she cannot remember what occurred when they inhabited her body. Each of them has their own different behaviors and mannerisms, and each of them carries memories of various sexual and physical torture at the hands of Sybil's schizophrenic mother and emotionally distant father. It is only under Dr. Wilbur's supervision and affectionate care that Sybil can recover. This book was incredible! I love the way it is written like a thriller, starting out when one of Sybil's personalities takes her on a trip to New York, and she arrives, unable to remember where she is. One can really empathize with Sybil because she seems like such a bright and gifted person, but she is so incredibly atrophied by abuse. Unfortunately, I ruined this book for myself when I was half-way through it, by reading some articles which claimed that Sybil was a fraud. While I personally think that Multiple-Personality Disorders do exist (although I am sure that they have been propagandized and over-diagnosed), I wish the book had done more to prove the veracity of this case. A documentary that is soon to come out, claims that a lot of the abuse may not have occurred, and that she was not a genuine multiple-personality. I wonder if this was simply the work of cynics, as this story has been around for so long, and seems realistic and non-outrageous enough to be true. Well worth reading! Enlightening and transforming!!
Rating:
Summary: Out of This World
Review: I am twelve years old and found this book profoundly disturbing
and exceedingly thought provoking. It is amazing! I have never
seen a book this powerful before, and I seriously doubt I ever
will. It is an exceptional read, however, contains some very
explicit material for children under thirteen. I highly recommend
this book to anyone interested in psychology, for its wealth of
insight and detail on the topic of MPD and psychology as a whole.
I found it extremely entertaining, especially the flashbacks
(which were powerful and traumatic, both for Sybil and the
reader) and was engrossed in it from start to finish. I'd give
it ten stars if I could! But beware: Contains very heavy and
deep subject matter which may offend some (flashbacks of her
mother's sexual abuse of her are very explicit, including one
scene in which Sybil is forced to watch her parent's engage in
intercourse, and another in which Sybil finds her mother
molesting a neighbor's child who she is babysitting). For kids
over twelve, and even then, take caution. Some of the story
elements are painful to digest. Still, this is an exceptional
book that will show kids the power of the human mind and of the
many elements that encourage MPD (multiple personality disorder).
5 stars!
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