Sybil

by Flora Rheta Schreiber

Paperback, 1984

Status

Available

Call number

616.858209

Genres

Collection

Your library

Publication

Warner Books (1984), Mass Market Paperback, 460 pages

Description

This is the amazing story of a woman who lived with 16 different personalities. Here is the unbelievable yet true story of Sybil Dorsett, a survivor of terrible childhood abuse, victim of sudden and mysterious blackouts. What happened during those blackouts has made Sybil's experience one of the most famous psychological cases in the world.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Katie_H

My opinion on this book is mixed, mainly due to the controversy involved with the author and therapist accounts (Google: "Sybil: The Making of a Disease?"). There have been many questions raised about the validity of the case study and diagnosis of MPD. If this book is, in fact, a true story, it is

an appalling example of the horrors of child abuse. Sybil, after suffering unspeakable acts of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of her schizophrenic mother, begins splintering off segments of her psyche in order to cope, creating 16 separate and distinct personalities. The book chronicles her therapy and recovery over a span of 20 years. There are many psychological terms included in the text, some of which are now considered dated (ex: Multiple Personality Disorder is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder), and many of the Freudian techniques and diagnoses mentioned are now disputed. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in psychology (as I do), though I'd also suggest researching the rebuttals.

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LibraryThing member MerryMary

An incredible story of child abuse and the lengths the human mind will go to survive.

LibraryThing member Alera

How does one say a book documenting the horrors of child abuse that led to 16 different personalities is a great book, because if you figure it out…that is what I want to say here. This book made me cry. It made me ache for Sybil. It was truly an experience all on its own. Multiple Personalities

have always fascinated me…not on the level of ‘oh freak’ but just in a ‘what made it happen’ sort of way. The way the mind shuts down and creates a new person to deal with what the original person can’t cope with…truly the mind amazes me. It’s so very intent on protecting itself. It’s a true story…and it was an easy read. The woman its written by was actually a friend of Sybil’s…she even is well present in the tale itself. There is something about this story that touches me…I don’t really know how to explain it.

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LibraryThing member Bogelskeren

Read it almost 20 years ago, have just received it through the mail and can hardly wait to get startet

LibraryThing member susanbevans

An excellent case study of a multiple personality, Sybil is a book that after reading just once, will stay with you forever.

LibraryThing member pgmcc

I read [Sybil] in 1978 and found it to be brilliant. Having seen and enjoyed "The Three Faces of Eve" in the 1960s (starring Joanne Woodward & Lee J. Cobb) I was fascinated to read the tragic tale of a girl who ended up with as many as sixteen personalities. The history of abuse was heartbreaking.

A

mini-series of Sybil was televised subsequent to my reading the book and Sybil was played by Sally Fields. Her performance was amazing, and you could see her tranform from one character to another in front of the camera. It was hard to believe the different characters were being played by the same actress. It was that series that demonstrated to me that Sally Fields is very talented.

Another quirky plus for the mini-series was the appearance of Joanne Woodward as the psychiatrist.

I know this has been more a movie review, but the book and these movies are all linked and part of a single entity in my mind.

Sybil is well worth a read.

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LibraryThing member jadestar31

I'm really conflicted about my feelings for this novel. The premise of Sybil is so riveting. A young woman, after a childhood of abuse, cruelty, and torture develops sixteen other distinct personalities. However, I found myself unable to get past the overly clinical language and all of the

psycho-analysis. I don't have a psychology background at all and was only able to understand part of the diagnoses.

The descriptions of the experiences had as a child and what her mother did to her were incredibly shocking. I found myself both repulsed and horrified. To imagine any child having to endure that makes me sick, and it completely explains why Sybil's subconscious fractured.

I found myself really frustrated with the circular and vague responses Sybil's other selves gave when Dr. Wilbur attempted to make them understand they were a part of Sybil. (A big reason why I could never be a psychiatrist is that I have very little patience). I know the understanding is supposed to be gradual, but it was just hard for me to swallow. I suppose that's why throughout the book I found myself questioning the truthfulness and validity of the personalities.

The whole book takes place over a decade. It was sometimes frustrating to realize that Sybil wasn't making much progress toward integration and there were a lot of reiterated points. The truth is that her psycho-analysis for overly complicated and repetitive and I became disinterested in it.

Overall, I don't think I recommend this book. It was just too analytical for my tastes. If anyone is really interested in the details about Sybil Dorsett, just Wikipedia the case instead of wasting your time with this book.

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LibraryThing member HeidiDenney

I love psychology so this book held my interest. It wasn't the traditional novel in its format - just a bit odd. It was horribly sad also. But the case itself of 16 personalities was amazing.

LibraryThing member polkadotshark

More interesting for the story surrounding it and what happened after than the actual content itself. As for the book, well, it read like a bad made for television movie than a factual account of a patient suffering from a severe mental disorder.

It's worth a look, but don't go in expecting much.

LibraryThing member polkadotshark

LibraryThing member CindyAmrhein

I read this book in high school when it first came out. It freaked me out. It was assigned to me in class and in 1973 (or 74 when I read it I don't remember which)there was nothing like it. The abuse was horrific, not to mention the concept of so many personalities. I had to write a book report and

I ripped it to shreds and told the teacher I was disgusted that I was forced to read this for school. I must have made my points of why I hated it because I got a good grade. At the time people weren't discussing these things. It was a break through in that regard but it did have an effect on me at the time. Would I read it again? Nope.

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LibraryThing member withlightandlove

I really liked this book and ended up feeling a deep compassion for this woman.

LibraryThing member JennysBookBag.com

I loved this book, but I'm still not sure if I believe that a multiple personality disorder exists. It seems too easy to fake.

LibraryThing member LoveAtFirstBook

A while ago, I heard of the book Sybil Exposed, about how the book Sybil is supposedly incorrect. In order to get a better understanding on that book whenever I get ahold of it, I figured I should reread Sybil by Flora Rheta Schrieber, since I haven’t read it since high school psychology.

My copy

of Sybil which totally fell apart as I read it. . . seriously, I recycled the pages as I read because none of them were glued into the book anymore!

Luckily, my aunt was giving away her copy.

Sybil is the supposedly-true story of a woman with multiple personalities. . . 16 of them. This causes her life to be disjointed, with many lapses in time that Sybil can’t make up for. She loses friends, seems moody, all because of the various personalities that take over when Sybil can’t cope.

But why can’t she cope?

For the full review, visit Love at First Book

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LibraryThing member dolly22

Had this been a first hand account of a therapist's encounter with a woman who was one of the first to be diagnosed with sixteen separate personalities its would have been much more engaging and fascinating account. However the story is told by a friend of Sybil and the therapist hence it does not

have the same immediacy and the author's grasp of the concept of psychoanalysis was amateur and simplistic. It was a disappointing and interminably dull read

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LibraryThing member alevitt08

Sybil, by Flora Rheta Schreiber, is a book that takes you into the life of a troubled girl. Sybil Isabel Dorsett becomes a victim of sixteen multiple personalities. Before reading Sybil, I had a bias view towards people who claimed they had this mental disorder. I did not know how truly real it is

and how deeply it affects the lives of those who possess it. The book started out with Sybil waking up and not recognizing where she was. At one point, she looked in her bag and saw a key to a hotel that she didn’t recall checking into. I was angered as I was reading the part when Sybil wouldn’t tell her doctor or her parents about the blank spells. At first, I was so surprised that her mother did not want to send Sybil to Dr. Wilbur. Later on in the book, I realized that it was because her own fear. She did not want the doctor to find out what exactly caused Sybil’s multiple personality disorder. It later came out that Hattie Dorsett, Sybil’s mom, abused Sybil as a child, both sexually and mentally. It was so interesting to find out that Hattie actually inflicted this mental disorder on her daughter. Whenever she could, she could abuse Sybil. This caused Sybil’s mind to create multiple selves to deal with the pain she went through everyday of her life. I found it amazing that one person can cause another person to develop a major mental disorder, such as multiple personality disorder. Before starting the book, I had one major question. The question was: is there a cure for the multiple personality disorder? As I read Sybil, I was able to see, in depth, the process of curing the disorder. The cure was integration. I learned that it was a very difficult process mostly because of the face that all of the selves did not want to listen to Doctor Wilbur and integrate. They were not cooperative at all in the process because they knew that integration meant their death in a way. Doctor Wilbur hypnotized them and as one by one, a self disappeared, I was excited as I saw one more step closer to one main self, however, as time went on, Sybil’s selves fought back and began to reappear. Out of all of Sybil’s sixteen personalities, two of them were boys. They refused to integrate with the rest of the personalities because they knew they would have to be a girl. This did not make sense because they were never truly men, being they had all the body parts girls have. The doctor tried to explain this to them, but they would not accept the fact that although they might be men mentally, they were not men physically. Many things in Sybil surprised me. The one thing that I really found interesting was how all of the selves, with the exception of Sybil herself, knew about each other. Sybil could not remember what happened in her life during the times the other selves took hold of her mind. However, other selves such as Vicky, could tell you all about what happened when Sybil her self was in control or when another self, such as Clara, was in control. Vicky talked to Dr. Wilbur as if she was not a part of Sybil. She was unique from the other selves because she would not admit that Sybil’s parents were her own. Vicky claimed that she was from a wealthy family who lived in France. She told the doctor about how one day her family was going to come to the United States to see her. In many ways Vicky was the most mature personality because she was the one who reported everything to t he doctor and could see deeper into situations. She knew why Sybil did the things she did. She knew that Sybil was troubled and why she had so much bottled up hanger. However, she would not face, she was Sybil, and carried some of the same grief and denial of the past as Sybil had. Although Sybil was a very long book, I found it to be one of the most interesting books that I have ever read. It showed how physiological problems, such as multiple personality disorder, affect peoples’ lives in such a great way. People who have psychological problems should not be looked at as “crazy” because, they’re problems are not in their hands, and as I found, can often has been brought about by others. I felt as though I was on Sybil’s journey to integration with her the whole way. The emotional aspect of this book was so intense; I could almost feel her pain, and Doctor Wilbur’s thirst to cure her. It was depressing in the fact that you had to bear witness to gruesome abuse that she faced.

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LibraryThing member a1stitcher

Yes, I was a child when I read this book. It left quite an impression on me, and began my fascination with the human mind.

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