Sybil: The true and extraordinary story of a woman possessed by sixteen separate personalities [Mass Market Paperback]

Flora Rheta Schreiber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 1989

Here is the unbelievable yet true story of Sybil Dorsett, a survivor of terrible childhood abuse who as an adult was a 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Astonishing . . . It forces you to look at yourself and the people around you in a new way." (Doris Lessing )

"Illumination. . . fascinating!" (Chicago Tribune )

"Spellbinding!" (Time magazine )

"A moving human narrative." (New York Review of Books )

About the Author

Flora Rheta Schreiber was the psychiatry editor of Science Digest when she first heard about Sybil. She spent seven years writing this book. She is also the author of The Shoemaker. She died in 1988 in New York City of a heart attack.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; First THUS Edition edition (May 25, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446359408
• ISBN-13: 978-0446359405
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (129 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #687,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

121 of 129 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars READ IT ONCE .... YOU WILL REMEMBER IT ALWAYS February 16, 2001

By Sandra D. Peters

Format:Mass Market Paperback

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.

96 of 102 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Spellbinding case study of multiple personality June 7, 2001

By Rachel Newstead

Format:Mass Market Paperback

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.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sybil Review October 8, 2001

By Matthew Moore

Format:Mass Market Paperback

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.