Sybil

Rating:
Summary: The Ordeal of Sybil: A Misdemeanor.
Review: The first time I picked up the book, I knew I wasn't going to put it down until I close it's last pages considering Doris Lessing's back-cover note, it really gave me all the extra-ordinary intellectual energy I needed to boost me read the book twice and over again. I feel great reading it. It was like skating on thin ice, yet a foresight into the pains of felony and hatred, the need to be loved and cared.

From the shattering sounds of broken glasses to the odor of the old drugstore and the chemistry laboratory, Vicky who is Sybil's memory trace during her blackouts began to recall all her lost episodes from childhood at Willow corner through adolescence in Philadelphia. "Sybil", the Biography of Sybil Isabel Dorsett by Flora Rheta Schreiber is a psychological masterpiece that will eventually make the reader take a closer look at the person next to him/her considering the astonishment discovery of this intriguing and fascinating true-life-story of a woman possessed with sixteen separate and distinct personalities. The book unveils the evil associated with child abuse & neglect. It also condemns the horrific ordeal of nursing emotions within as a naïve person. Infact it is Reality beyond the limits of perception in the research of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD).

Sybil, who through the scourge of a schizophrenic inflicted mother went through certain odd torments, disassociated herself by splitting into sixteen separate and distinct personalities while coping with the anguish of fear and anger in order to protect and defend herself through disintegration when the real self could no longer bear the pains of neglect and abuse coupled with a fundamentalist father who was less concerned about the emotions and feelings of his daughter. In her struggle for survival and recovery, Flora Rheta introduced Dr. Cornelia Wilbur a psychoanalyst to Sybil. She diagnosed her and indeed befriends all the other selves after hypnotizing them with the aim of merging them into a single self. Another intriguing aspect of this book is that two out of the sixteen personalities were male features thereby lengthening the therapy.

The insight objective part of this story is that it is helpful to all both as a psychologist and as a person because it reveals a lot of damages done mentally, emotionally, physically and psychologically in child abuse/neglect, moreso it unravels the building of a defensive wall within some emotional struggles in a naïve person as a means of survival. I hereby recommend the book "SYBIL" as a must read for all who crave and quest for intellectual knowledge in child psychology and juvenile delinquency.

Infact if I could ever narrate a book with all pleasure, it will be 'Sybil' and if I could ever re-reader a book over and over again with all interest, it must be "Sybil". I love the story though a painful experience but I just can't let it go. Her case was a misdemeanor of neglect and the need to be loved and cared for. The Real Sybil died in 1998 after successfully becoming whole. She has proved change to be a dynamic fact and time to be there for us no matter how long it takes to heal a wound. It's one of the best books on earth. Thanks goodness I read the book. If you are crazy about biographies, then go check this out; First Person Plural: My Life As A Multiple by Cameron West, Ph.D.

Rating:
Summary: The most fascinating book I've ever read
Review: I read this book over 20 years ago. It was one of the first books I read as an adult. It remains today the most fascinating book I have ever read. We are so used to outlandish fictional stories being thrown at us that we become jaded. Creatures that visit from other planets or monsters that have no purpose other than to scare teenagers are commonplace but unreal. What is much scarier than they could ever be is the real world. So horribly betrayed by what should be the most trusted person in her world - her mother; that Sybil must write her own science fiction story to survive. I remember staying up through the night reading this book. While the TV movie with Sally Field obviously isn't as detailed as the book, it too is riveting. To this day, I grow pale whenever the actress who played Sybil's mother Hattie appears on my TV - in anything. No other actor or actress has that effect on me. The recent airing of the TV movie has brought all this back to me. This is a great story of someone beating the odds and the eventual triumph of good over evil.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, compelling, eventually inspiring
Review: Whoever states that repressed memories don't exist must be very unfamiliar with victims of trauma. Adults often don't remember a car crash or a hostage situation. Why would a child choose to remember horrific abuse? Therapy trends come and go, but the basics of the mind, psychology and psychiatry stay the same. Sybil is the story of a woman with multiple selves, each one developed to handle different life stresses and situations. Look up "dissociative disorder" at google.com to find out more about the causes and manifestations of such disorders.

Rating:
Summary: Sybil Review
Review: If you are interested in psychology Sybil is a must read. It is about a girl with sixteen personalities. It is based on a true story about her life. It is very well written and although it may get a little confusing, you eventually learn to recognize each individual personality within Sybil.
This book is a tantalizing journey through Sybil's life and journey to become whole again. It involves some graphic descriptions of horrible events that made Sybil split into multiple personalities and therefore may not be appropriate for children under 13 years of age.
I have learned a lot from this book and it has opened my eyes to the interesting field of psychology. I would have to call it one of the most interesting books I have ever read and I look forward to reading it again.
Therefore I hope everyone can take time out of his or her busy schedule to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great book, great movie
Review: I actually saw the movie first and was blown away by it. Then I read the book, and "knowing" what was coming was even more devestated! What a powerful, jaw-dropping experience it was for me to read this. I'm reminded of other books dealing with child abuse ("A Child Called It" or McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood"--though the latter is actually funny at times, if you can believe that). But Sybil remains top of the list with regards to horror stories. The pacing of the book is just incredible, and the build up to the "climax" is truly well-crafted. Highly recommended, but not for the faint-of-heart!

Rating:
Summary: All in all, a good read
Review: Decades after this book was published, many things have been uncovered (such as the true identity of Sybil, who is now deceased). Some people think that every detail is true and others feel that the author sensationalized things to make this a better read. Even if this story contains fallacies it is a good book. I first read it when I was very very young and it haunted me for quite a while.

Because of it's disturbing nature, I reccommend this book for anyone over the age of 18.

Rating:
Summary: For some parts
Review: Dr. Wilbur writes this book as a doctor trying to be a writer which made me constantly aware of who was writing rather than what was being written. The most interesting parts of the book were details about Sybil's past (which were, at times, compelling) whereas the details about methods and therapy were just boring. Maybe it's just hard to try to write a interesting work and remain professional at the same time, but I think someone else could have written this much better.

Rating:
Summary: A terrible lie
Review: This book is a lie, and I am saddened to see how many people here are giving it five stars and reading it completely uncritically. While it is beyond my judgement to say whether or not Sybil actually experienced MPD, there are a few things I can say with certainty. First, virtually all of Dr. Wilbur's methods have been proven conclusively to be total ridiculous and completely unreliable. The "repressed memories" around which so much of Sybil's case history is based simply do not exist. There is no such thing as repressed memory therapy. It is a pseudo-science that was never backed up by anything more than hypothesis and has now been entirely demolished by hard evidence. Second, I do know that there are many psychologists today who are questioning whether or not Sybil actually had MPD or, as has happened in many, many other cases, it was created. It is entirely possible that Sybil was not an MPD and in reality was just a severely emotionally distressed woman who was highly suggestible. I am not in a position to make this judgement and, unless you are a psychologist with advanced knowledge in the field, neither are you.

This book sparked a movement to treat people through "repressed memory therapy." This movement became very popular and influential in the 1980s. The result of this movement? Thousands upon thousands of false accusations of childhood abuse around the globe and widespread belief in large Satanic cults performing all sorts of bizarre rituals of human sacrifice. But don't take my word for it. After all, I'm just a reviewer who you don't know. Take an hour, a half hour even should suffice. Do the research. You will find that virtually every single major pyschological organization in the world has published some sort of a statement on the absurdity and/or unreliability of "repressed memory therapy." In about two hours, I was able to compile over fifty pages of research and there was much more beyond what I took. It's not hard, and it's worth your time. Find out the truth and expose this book for what it is.

Rating:
Summary: Exposed...
Review: This book was exposed... several years ago, after a researcher tracked down the real "Sybil". The author made up the sensational facts to fit her own odd theories, and sold a lot of books in the process. The real girl's "symptoms" were invented by her therapist, and she nver actually had most of the experiences detailed in the book. See Newsweek (January 25, 1999, where Peter M. Swales discusses the people and issues behind the book

Rating:
Summary: A good place to start
Review: If you are interested in learning more about Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)(its synonym), this is a good place to start.

This is the story of a woman who, due to severe trauma and abuse as a child, dissociated and split into sixteen separate personalities. This book tells her story, from her birth, all the way to finding Dr. Weber and discovering the secrets of her past. "Sybil" shows, with great detail, many attributes and differences in each part of her psyche.

Being a Multiple myself, I found that this book was a good place for people wanting to know some basic information, but far from what most encounter with MPD. Most people with MPD do not have as clear cut breaks in personality as you see in Sybil or Three Faces of Eve. Since MPD is estimated to occur a lot more frequently than previously thought (it's no longer considered "rare"), it is quite probable that you know someone with this dissociative disorder and just don't know it.

The other comment I have is that many laypeople read this book and think that Sybil's abuse was more horrendous that could ever be imagined. I'm here to testify that what Sybil endured (according to the book) is quite tame compared to most abuse that results in such an extreme as MPD.

Read it, understand it, enjoy it, but remember that this is not THE Multiple Personality Bible. :vD