Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Separate Personalities

by Flora Rheta Schreiber

Book Overview

More amazing than any work of fiction, yet true in every word, it swept to the top of the bestseller lists and riveted the consciousness of the world. As an Emmy Award-winning film starring Sally... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446550124
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 1.1" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

Buyer Beware

I bought this book because as a psychologist DID fascinates me. However, when I got the book there were pages torn out, the cover is falling off, and it is not what I would call “acceptable condition”. Highly disappointed

Deeply upset

I know this book is used but the pages are yellowed and torn I'm not wasting time or money sending this book back. When I read the description it did not say yellowed and torn pages it said In good condition. That is not my definition of good condition

missing multiple pages.

While the book is great and a favorite read, the copy I bought Came missing multiple pages.

Great book, great movie

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!

The Ordeal of Sybil: A Misdemeanor.

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 a

READ IT ONCE .... YOU WILL REMEMBER IT ALWAYS

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.

E PLURIBUS UNUM - OUT OF MANY IS ONE

The case history of "Sybil" brought the mental malady of multiple personality disorder to the general public. Prior to the accounts of "Eve" (Chris Sizemore, the world's most famous person to have survived with this disorder) and "Sybil," many misperceptions about the illness were touted as fact. For example, many experts discounted the existence of multiple personality disorder and often saw it as a form of malingering.Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, who died in 1994 made psychiatric history with Sybil. Together they work to pierce the "Clock Incomprehensible," fugue states where Sybil cannot account for her whereabouts or actions. During their several years of hard work together, doctor and patient uncover a total of 16 separate and distinct personalities. Born in 1923, Sybil's various "selves" were "born" over 20-year time span, from 1926 to 1946. Vanessa is the only personality who is able to play the piano. Mike and Sid are her male personalities. Vicky is her cosmopolitan, cultured personality. Vicky and Vanessa appear to be the most appealing personalities and all 16 were created to cope with Sybil's psychotic mother. Angry and dangerously mentally ill, the woman had a history of sexually abusing children. Sybil remembered seeing the mother naked and bouncing a naked neighbor's baby between her legs. The mother would also defecate on neighbor's lawns. She inserted objects into Sybil's body almost from the time Sybil was an infant; she forced the girl to drink laxatives and refused to let her release solid waste; she suspended her from the ceiling; she choked her; left her in a corn crib to smother; beat her with an array of sundry objects and permanently scarred her body with a button hook. Sybil's father appears to be singularly ineffectual; he dodges the mother and years later claims to have had no knowledge of the woman's extreme cruelty. Sybil's acceptance of the personalities takes time as well. Dr. Wilbur uses hypnosis to fuse the personalities and after several hypnotherapy sessions, Sybil agrees to accept all of the personalities and their abilities be merged into one, herself. By 1965 Sybil is an "integrated" unit.A gifted artist, several of Sybil's personalities drew and painted. The real Sybil died in 1998 and her profession was listed as "artist."