Sybil

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Summary: Sybil- Insightful, but long and monotonous.
Review: I had always wanted to read Sybil, but I was a bit afraid to because I thought I might get weirded out. However, this book was nothing of the sort. It humanized multiple personality disorder, or more specifically, in Sybil's case, grande hysterie. The book allowed the reader to develop compassion for Sybil and her other "selves". It delineates the human defense mechanisms that one may use in cases of severe abuse. Rather than Sybil being "crazy" as society has led us to believe with the release of the TV movie in the 1970's, she is just a brutally abused woman whose subconcious persona saved her in any way it could. The treacherous rituals that Sybil's mother put her through as a child and her father's oblivious attitude gives no reason for surprise in Sybil's development of several personalities to act as her different moods and emotions. This book was fascinating at times, with Sybil not being able to remember years of her life because of the possession of her body by one or several of her sixteen personalities. However, the book dragged in places. It was over 400 pages, and although I am sure it would be difficult, it would have been possible to omit some of the details and childhood memories to make a more fast-paced, exciting story. On the contrary, Schreiber did not mean for this story to be entertainment for the reader. The movie was dramatized, so one might find it more interesting. It is not, however, a true depiction of Sybil's life. The author meant to give insight into Sybil and her illness. I believe I learned a lot about multiple personality disorder. If you are interested in psychology and the human mind, I suggest reading this book. Do not read it if you want to read something that appears exciting and inhuman.

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Summary: Outstanding
Review: I read this when I was stationed on Okinawa. Truly one of the best stories ever told. Keeps the reader "hooked" with the story and unable to put it down.

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Summary: The Psychoanalytic Perspective
Review: Sigmund Freud is most know by his revolutionary ideas that formed the psychoanalytic theory, which emphases that psychological difficulties and abnormal behavior result from unconscious conflicts and motivations, and that psychoanalysis is the preferred form of psychotherapy since it is able to bring insight to these hidden conflicts. In the real story of Sybil, Dr. Wilbur does a deep research in the Freud's techniques to discover the unconscious of Sybil, so She could be able to determine what lead Sybil with so many personalities and what could be a possible treatment for her dissociate identity disorder. While the treatment of mental disorders in the psychoanalytic approach centers on therapist's helping the patients to identify and resolve his or her unconscious conflicts, the biological, cognitive and behavioral approaches are classified more scientifically because its methods involves more scientific confirmed theories and better observations than the psychosexual stages proposed by Freud in the psychoanalytic method.
Freud's theory was the first to describe the divisions of the mind, popular known as 'Id, Ego, and Superego' and to emphasizes the importance of early childhood experiences, repressed thoughts, conflicts between conscious and unconscious that influence our thoughts and behaviors. Since Freud's theory emphasizes in the psychosexual stages, the psychoanalytic method explain behavior as a observable action that were influenced in the childhood experiences, where the first five years have a profound effect on later personality development. In Sybil case, as she was a child of a schizophrenic mother,( called Hattie) , Sybil was abused physical and sexual that let were her to have a mental splitting or dissociated of identities as one way to defend against or cope with terrible trauma. Therefore, Her doctor called Dr. Wilbur uses the techniques of Freud to discover the unconscious such as Free association and dream Interpretation that could lead what Sybil had experienced in her childhood and how she could cope with those traumas in order to treat her dissociate identity disorder.
IN the same case of Sybil, as her abnormal behavior were lead by the traumas of childhood, The five psychosexual stages (oral anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages) proposed by Freud, are marked by potential conflict between parent and child. The conflicts arise as a child seeks pleasure from different body areas that area associated with sexual feelings. So, the abnormal behaviors usually are due to unconscious conflicts or problems with unresolved conflicts at one or more Freud's psychosexual stages, which applies perfect in the case of Sybil. Also, the dissociative identity disorder, according to the psychoanalytic method, was a method that Sybil created that operates at unconscious levels to help the ego reduce anxiety through self-deception. The sophisticated Vicky was the 'record Keeper' of the selves, holding back the memories too painful for Sybil and other to know. Peggy Lou (or Marshall) was the repository of Sibyl's anger'defiant, belligerent, contemptuous of Sybil and terrified for Sybil and terrified of breaking glass; Vanessa, an impressive musical talent. Indeed, Vicky had good reason to keep the memories in check. Sybil had endured a childhood so horrible the word 'nightmarish' doesn't do it justice.
As Dr. Wilbur stared to discover the many personalities that Sybil possessed, The goals of psychoanalysis were well applied by her, which Freud developed in the late 1800s, emphases that unacceptable or threatening thoughts were repressed and unavailable to conscious recall. Repressed thoughts could produce unconscious conflicts that, in turn, could result in feeling anxious and a variety of psychological and emotional problems. So, Dr. Wilbur needed to use the techniques for uncovering and revealing unconscious thoughts: free association and dream interpretation, to discover ways to treat Sybil. Dr. Wilber had found many clues such as the purple crayon, where Sybil remembered when her mother hid her and she almost died of starvation. When Dr. Wilbur used free association with Sybil, the thoughts usually expressed by Sybil lead to an unconscious confused by her traumas in the childhood. But by psychology clues leading to unconscious conflicts, Dr. Wilbur cannot prove them, nor can she ever knows if her interpretation point to the true cause and effect. And this raises the most serious problem for psychoanalysis: most of its concepts are based on case studies and are difficult or impossible to verify with experimental methods. Thus, It is hard consider the psychoanalytic method classified as scientifically valid according to the scientific method since there's a lack of experimental methods with confirmed theories.
Freud's classical psychoanalysis has fallen on hard times, but many of his ideas have been incorporated into other and more types of therapy, such as the short-term psychodynamic and eclectic approach. Indeed, Freud's theory had an enormous impact on society, such as the terms ego and rationalization, in the fields of personality, development, and abnormal psychology. Dr. Wilbur made a big process in the case of Sybil by the help of Freud, so possible his theories are going to be used in many generation, so that's the why is considered as a scientific method, where the unconscious forces plays the major rule in our conscious thoughts and behaviors.

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Summary: excellent
Review: i loved the book sybil but unfortunally i lost the book does anybody know the address where i can send the money so i can buy another copy and how much it is.

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Summary: Spellbinding case study of multiple personality
Review: In 1954, a thin, nervous young woman walked into the office of New York psychiatrist Cornelia Wilbur complaining of unusual "spells". She would inexplicably "lose time", fading out of consciousness and coming to again hours or even days later, often in an unfamiliar city and wearing clothing she never remembered buying. Believing it to be a case of hysteria, Dr. Wilbur embarks on what she thinks will be a routine course of treatment. Until, that is, her patient strode into the office one day with a confident, almost aristocratic air. "Sybil couldn't come," she says, "you can call me Vicky." Dr. Wilbur realized she was dealing with a victim of multiple personality disorder, then almost unheard of. For Dr. Wilbur and the young woman (whom the author gives the pseudonym of Sybil) it was the beginning of an emotionally exhausting eleven-year journey to make a fractured human being whole again.

In the course of her treatment, Sybil proved to have no less than sixteen different personalities (including two male alters, Mike and Sid). The sophisticated Vicky was the "record keeper" of the selves, holding back the memories too painful for Sybil and the others to know. Peggy Lou was the repository of Sybil's anger--defiant, belligerent, contemptuous of Sybil and terrified of breaking glass; Vanessa, a redhead with impressive musical talent. Some, like Ruthie, were barely more than toddlers mentally.

Vicky had good reason to keep the memories in check. Sybil had endured a childhood so horrible the word "nightmarish" doesn't do it justice. The child of a schizophrenic mother, (called "Hattie") and a passive, distant Fundamentalist father, Sybil never knew what awful or outlandish thing her mother was liable to do. An abused child before the term existed, Sybil was forced to endure physical and sexual torture that seems chilling even in our tabloid tell-all age. Rape and inexplicable, unnecessary forced enemas were a daily ritual until the age of six or seven--the angry, frightened Peggy Lou had to emerge to endure the unending agony.

Schreiber paints a vivid portrait of Sybil's family and the conservative town in which she grew up, and while we discover a clear history of schizophrenia on the maternal side of Sybil's family, Schreiber places most of the blame at the feet of Sybil's father Willard. He had known of his wife Hattie's schizophrenia from the time Sybil was six, when Hattie submerged into a mysterious catatonic state for an entire winter. Yet he made no attempt to hospitalize her, weakly protesting that he couldn't separate a mother and her child. The child's one escape from this hellish woman came in the form of her grandmother--when she died, Sybil's self disappeared. When she re-emerges, she finds herself in a fifth-grade classroom--almost two years later.

After years of harrowing, almost fatal crises, Sybil's selves are eventually reunited in 1965--when she is forty-two. For forty of those years, she was a living mosaic, a collection of parts. Hers was touted as a classic case of MPD and childhood abuse. Yet, not long after the death of the real Sybil in the early nineties, controversy arose over the accuracy of the account. Some professionals alleged that Sybil had not been a multiple personality at all, and may in fact have never been abused. Dr. Wilbur knew this, they maintain, as did the author--the "personalities" had supposedly been planted in Sybil's mind under hypnosis. The truth may never be known, but it is an undeniable fact such cases do occur, and as such, "Sybil" is a primer for anyone wanting to know the nature and origins of multiple personality.

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Summary: it's almost hard to belive it's a true story
Review: Sybil's story starts by describing one of her "fugues": she finds herself in Philadelphia, with an hotel key in her purse, money missing from it, and the date on the local newspaper is January 7. the last thing she rememberd was that she left the chemistry lab in columbia university ,NY, on January 2. that has been the nightmare of Sybil's life,that since early childhood found herself in strange situations, blamed for things she did not do, approched by poeople she did not know. finding herself sitting in the fifth grade classroom, when she thought she was in the third grade, not understanding what the teacher was talking about. little by little, the saga of Sybil and her other "alters" is told. at first you just think that her mother was disturbed and overprotecting, but as the pages turn, you find out the horror. the abuse she took was so terrifying, that the other alters had to take over in order to help the little child, and later the fragile woman she became, to cope with the terrible things she was put through by her psychotic mother. the story of Sybil is very well told by Flora Rheta Schreiber, who was working closely with Sybil and her doctor, and was approved by Sybil herself who said that every emotion in it was true. this book is fascinating and unbelivable and makes you think about the power of the human mind.

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Summary: Amazing.
Review: Sybil is the best true-life account of mental illness I've ever read. The author's writing draws you in and makes you feel like you are a part of the madness, and I love that. You know how everyone is always saying "the book is better than the movie?" Well, that's true with this book.. though I recommend trying to find a copy of the movie once you've finished it.

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Summary: READ IT ONCE .... YOU WILL REMEMBER IT ALWAYS
Review: It is impossible to say a book on such a sensitive and horrific issue as child abuse is a great book to read; in fact, this book is probably one of the most difficult ones to read that you will ever come across. Having studied psychology, it is a known fact that Multiple Personality Disorder(MPD) is associated with child abuse. The personality "splits" when the human psyche can no longer cope with the pain of abuse.

Sybil is a story of such abuse at the hands of a mentally disturbed mother - sexual, physical and emotional abuse prevail. Sybil is a true story based on one of the most severe cases of MPD and child abuse in history. Over a span of twenty years, it reveals the various "personalities" living within one woman. How one could even survive such atrocities is beyond belief. The time period of this story ends in the 40's. Today, research continues on this subject and much has been learned since Sybil's case, but one can never have enough knowledge.

Sybil's personalities eventually merge and in 1998, the real Sybil died, finding, we hope, final peace and contentment. If you are interested in books on MPD, another true life story is, First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple, by Cameron West, PH.D.

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Summary: Great Book
Review: Drama/suspense Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber pp 460 This is agreat book for... who definitely like real life horrors. Sybil isabout a young woman who is suffering from multiple personalities. Shenever told anybody about this illness until she finally has to stopgoing to college because she has these "blank spells." It ishere, when Sybil returns home that she meets Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, apsychiatrist for the first time and definitely not the last. Butproblems occur at home so it makes it difficult she resume seeing thedoctor. Over the next couple of years Sybil's mother dies, and Sybilhas to stay home to tend to her father. She meets up with Dr. Wilburagain and starts up with the sessions. It wasn't until one of thesession that the doctor realizes that Sybil is a multiple personalitybut Sybil doesn't know it. Dr. Wilbur realizes that she has to findout what happened to Sybil when she was younger to make Sybil become amultiple personality. It doesn't seem real that people would dohorrible things to kids. This book is so intense up to know that itmakes the reader continue with it. It makes the reader wonder whathappened to her. Why is she like this? So far the doctor has met onlya couple of Sybil's personalities. The reader can sense a change inSybil whenever Sybil shows up for an appointment. It isn't until Sybilhas been seeing the doctor for a couple of years know that the readerputs the pieces together that Sybil's mother was behind all of Sybil'stortures when she was young. The climax of the book isn't until themiddle when the reader finds out what happened to her. It is therethat one can only image what pain she went through. The rest of the isstill good but sort of dragging a little. The reader knows whathappened so there is no mystery left. The rest of the book is aboutSybil's family and how they got to be the way they were. This is anexcellent book for people who want to study psychology. It is a greatexample in how the mind works. Very good read....

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Summary: enthralling true story
Review: I remember seeing the movie which was based on this book years ago vaguely and it did go into some of the abuse afflicted on her by her mother but not in as much detail as the book did itself. Which is usually the case with book to screen translations but this is beside the point. Multiple personality disorder has fascinated me for several years now and even though It is considered to be " placee" by some people the subject has always fascinated me. Sybil is a classic true story about one persons ordeal and recovery from Mulitple personality dissociative idenity disorder and I had been meaning for quite some time to read it and having recieved it as a Christmas present by someone, Just got finished with it. It is a testament of the fragile yet resilliant human psyche and to why child abuse is so wrong. We now know that the early stages of childhood are so crucial in human developement and that traumas occuring during that time can effect the young mind so immeasurably and some times irreversibily. In addition to dissociative identity disorder there is also detachment disorder that also comes from severe child hood abuse and neglect, where the child fails to develope empathy for other people. Child abuse can also continue the cycle of abuse through the generations. Do we as a society want to create human monsters and /or fragmented people? Or do we want to produce whole persons capable of feeling for others , contributing to society positively and knowing themselves well? This book does give one pause and makes us question our very sense of self, who we really are and where we came from psychologically. I have suffered child abuse too and sometimes wonder after reading an account of MPD if I too have had moments of dissociation but without the fragmented self , loss of time and amneisa. Sometimes I too have seemed to be somewhere else or not in the present moment and there maybe memories my conciousness has chosen to repress to protect itself. Sybil gets you to think and examine yourself.