Transcript Sybil Exposed - University of Wisconsin–Platteville

Sybil Exposed
BY: KAYLA DAY
Story of Sybil (1973)

Multiple personalities case

Patient suffered from extreme abuse by her mom

Over 16 personalities

Sybil (Shirley Mason) – the patient

Cornelia Wilbur – the psychiatrist

Flora Shreiber – the author

The story of a brilliant psychiatrist who cures her patient from
her several personalities and frees her from a dreadful past.

One by one “aged” each personality to Sybil’s age
1940’s and 1950’s

Female psychiatrists were not common and were often not taken
seriously


Neo-Fruedians and psychoanalysis

Talk therapy

Digging into childhood memories

Trauma from childhood = psychosis

Trauma typically brought on by cruel mothers
WWII ending: soldiers returning from war

Several women losing job positions

Women and role confusion = mental illness
Shirley Mason Father

Walter Mason

Grew up in Dodge Center, Minnesota

Seventh-Day Adventist

Architect and contractor

Met his wife Mattie at age 26

Became a very active member of the church
Mother

Mattie Atkinson

Grew up a Methodist in Emmetsburg, Iowa

Married Walter 1910

Converted to Adventism after giving birth to
Shirley

Poor health

Gave birth to Shirley in 1923 after several
miscarriages
Shirley’s Childhood

Make-believe and fantasy was sin

Feared Satan

Very creative


Created stories, draw, stitched

2 imaginary friends: Sam and Vicky

Day dreamed and lost in fantasies
Attended public school

Felt isolated from peers
Childhood Continued..

Lost in fantasy


Difficult distinguishing fantasy and truth
Often sick

Anxiety, obsessive with time, squinting, phobia of prints,
insomnia

Compulsion to look at her hands

Dr. Flores diagnosed her with anemia and extreme
loneliness.
Relationship with Mattie

Mattie had 2 sides

Active member of community, energetic, and fun

“Blues” Lethargic, called her daughter names

Shirley craved her mom’s attention

Mattie often played with dolls and games
when she was not in the “blues”
Adulthood

College at Mankato State Teachers College
in Minnesota

Interest in psychoanalysis

Health and anxiety worsened


Blackouts

Diagnosed with hysteria
Wanted to become art teacher in mental
hospital
Cornelia Wilbur

Born in Montana

Mother: Bertie

Father: Arthur

2 brothers: Oliver and Richard

Homeschooled

Medical student in Michigan

Discouraged by parents

Very ambitious

Graduated 1930

Pursued profession as chemist
Psychiatry

Married Henry Marsh Wilbur for money

Returned to school to study psychiatry in 1934


Worked in mental hospital in Omaha


Fascinated with hysteria
Worked primarily with hysteria patients
Pontiac Michigan

Metrazol convulsive therapy

Chemical trances using barbiturates

Popular with WWII soldiers
Psychiatry Continued



1942 – back in Omaha

Assisted with lobotomies

Held private practice
Cornelia’s mentor: Dieterle

Patient with multiple personalities

Sparked Cornelia’s fascination with multiple personalities
Received an appointment July 1945

Shirley Mason
Therapy 1945



Immediate fascination with each other

Shared everything with each other

Shirley’s ambition reminded Cornelia of herself

Saw Shirley as a daughter
Cornelia gave Shirley published work to read

Horrible mothers

Disassociation of personalities

Use of hypnotism
After WWII Dr. Wilbur lost her job and had to move

Apart for 9 years
Time Apart


Shirley got a degree in English and Art

Art therapist at Porter Hospital in Denver, Colorado

Teaching job in Memphis

Also worked toward a degree in psychology
Her mother passed in 1948 of stomach
cancer

Very overworked

Coped by getting lost in her fantasy world
Time Apart Continued…



Cornelia Wilbur moved to Manhattan in 1946

Worked at VA clinic

Used injections and shock therapy on veterans
Unfulfilled: studied psychoanalysis

Neo-Fruedians: “Talk therapy”

Cruel mothers brought on psychosis in children
Three Faces of Eve

Woman suffering from multiple personalities due to role confusion

Began private practice out of her home

Shirley called
Therapy: Drugs and
Trances

Shirley told Dr. Wilbur about arriving at random placed
and not remembering how she got there

Prescriptions of several habit forming medications

Seconal, Demerol, Edrisal, Daprisal, Dexamyl, Equanil,
Serpatilin, Thorazine, etc…

Shirley arrived to a session as Peggy


Young, immature, and energetic
Dr. Wilbur gave Shirley injections of pentothal “truth
serum” to find out more
Therapy: Personalities



Peggy Ann & Peggy Lou

Peggy Ann was an aggression version of Peggy Lou

Nicknames from her mother
Vicky

Teenage girl

Shirley’s imaginary friend from childhood
Mike

Spent time building with his dad

Helen, Mary, Clara, Marcia

These personalities only came out for people that knew about
Shirley’s case.
Therapy: Repressed
Memories

Childhood friend: John Greenwald

Dr. Wilbur uncovered Shirley’s traumatic memory that she watched John
die at age 7 from a gun shot

John passed when Shirley was 17 and not by a gun

Dr. Wilbur directed conversations toward childhood trauma and her
mother

Memory of being held down with a light and blanket over her, in
great pain


Dr. Wilbur concluded Shirley was raped

Shirley was recalling her memory of a tonsillectomy
Use of leading questions and constantly suggested memories of
abuse

Mattie is “wicked, bad, cruel… If you don’t hate her, you ought to”

Mattie had schizophrenia
Repressed Memories
Continued…

Abuse from Shirley’s mom

Ice cold enemas through the urethra

Performed sexual acts in front of Shirley

Lesbian orgies in the woods with underage girls

Hung Shirley upside down and raped her with
kitchen utensils

Tied Shirley to the piano while she played

Defecated on neighbor’s lawns and made
Shirley watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaR4AwH
7bb4
Addiction

Shirley became addicted to the pentothal injections

Was experiencing body pain from all of the medications she
was on and from withdrawal of pentothal


Dr. Wilbur concluded that this pain was from bringing up
memories of abuse
Dr. Wilbur refused to give Shirley more injections

Shirley wrote a letter explaining that she made up the
personalities to please her doctor.

Dr. Wilbur concluded that this was resistance and denial and only
meant that Shirley was ready for more intensive treatment.
Dr. Herbert Spiegel

“Hypnotic Virtuosos”

People that can easily put themselves in a trance

Extremely sensitive to suggestions and creation of false memories

Took over session with Shirley when Dr. Wilbur was out of town

Did not interpret Shirley’s roles as “personalities”

It is common to create fantasies under hypnosis
SM: “Well do you want me to be Helen?”
HS: “What do you mean?”
SM: “When I’m with Dr. Wilbur she wants me to be Helen.”
Crossing Boundaries

House calls late at night and home visits on the
weekends

Dr. Wilbur would come over to give late-night
injections, even when Shirley resisted

Talked to Shirley about other patients

Shirley worked as Dr. Wilbur’s secretary and dog
walker

Secretarial work
Crossing Boundaries Continued..

Hooked up Shirley with an art therapy position at a
mental hospital

Told Shirley that she wished she was her mother

Spent the night

Assisted Shirley with moving

Dr. Wilbur paid for Shirley’s tuition, furniture, and a
house pet if she agreed to let a book be written
about her case


Shirley agreed
Shirley broke off an engagement with a man so that
she could stay with Dr. Wilbur
Flora Schreiber’s
Childhood

Born in 1916 in Manhattan

Only child

Dad: William

Mom: Esther



Jewish immigrants

Atheists
Loved to write and play piano

Enjoyed listening to classical music with her dad

Parents were very encouraging to improve her skills and
pursue her dreams
No friends throughout school
Flora’s adulthood

Attended Colombia University’s Teachers College in
1934

Studied Dramatic Arts in London

Passion for writing

Lived with her parents after graduating


Not making much money on her writings

Tried to sell work to the Cavalcade Theater but they
were not interested
Became a writer for women’s magazines
Flora Meets Doctor Wilbur



Began interviewing psychiatrists and writing articles on their
cases

Cases and patients did not need to be real

Flora did not bother to check the validity of these cases
Introduced to Dr. Wilbur

Wrote an article on her homosexual patient

Story did not fit what she wanted so she changed several
important details and wrote a happier ending

Dr. Wilbur was very pleased
Dr. Wilbur introduced Flora to Shirley’s case and asked her to
write a book.

At this point, Shirley has been in treatment for 8 years
The “Cure”

Dr. Wilbur wanted to leave New York



New job in West Virginia and got Shirley a job nearby
Realized that therapy has been going on for too long

Shirley has become too dependent on Dr. Wilbur

Knew that Flora’s book would only sell if there was a happy
ending
Told Shirley it was time to get better and integrate her
personalities

Shirley immediately got better

Had one seizure and never again disassociated into another
personality
Sybil

Flora thought that the personalities did not have
enough depth


Dr. Wilbur and Shirley created appearances and character
traits for each personality
Flora went to Shirley’s hometown to conduct
interviews


There were no indications of abuse from Shirley’s mother

Found that Mattie was diagnosed with anemia and
depression, not schizophrenia
Was skeptical about the story but wrote the book
anyways
Published

Shirley was terrified of being identified

Used the name “Sybil” to hide her identity

Dr. Wilbur wanted her identity known

Book was published in 1973

During this time, Shirley was happy as an art
teacher

Dr. Wilbur was a professor in Lexington where
residents were coincidentally being taken over
by multiple personalities
Fame

The book became a top seller

Dr. Wilbur and Flora wanted the attention for themselves



Despised each other

Flora was fed up with the story and grew tired of protecting
Shirley’s identity
Numerous fan letters from women relating to the story

Females feeling torn between so many different roles

“Torn in all directions”
Sybil Inc

Board games, movie, t-shirts
Implications

1970’s: Primal therapy

Repressed painful memories as children led to issues in adult life

“Encouraged people to sob, roll on the floor, and scream bloodcurdling accusations against their parents”

Concerns about child abuse

Patients came flooding to Dr. Wilbur for help with
disassociations

Multiple Personalities Disorder was added to the
DSM in 1980

1980’s: Epidemic of accusations against teachers,
parents and childcare workers

Children claiming that it did not happen, meant it DID
happen
Implications

Before Sybil there were less than 200 cases of
multiple personalities


By 1984, there was anywhere from 25,000 to 7 million patients with this
disorder

Celebrities: Roseanne Barr
1992: False Memory Syndrome Foundation

Parents were being accused of abuse that did not take place

Backlash against MPD

Warnings against hypnotism and creation of false memories

Therapist were being sued
Later Years..


Flora passed in 1988 of a heart attack and stroke

Never wrote another top seller as popular as Sybil

Next big story put her in debt
Dr. Wilbur passed in 1992 from a heart attack

Dr. Wilbur and Shirley remained close friends up until her
death

Several people found out about Sybil’s true identity

Shirley spent the rest of her years in hiding

Passed in 1998 of cancer at age 75
Discussion

Female psychiatrists were uncommon and not
taken very seriously in the mid 1900’s. Several parts
of Cornelia Wilbur’s practice was clearly
questionable and unethical. Do you think that Dr.
Wilbur had ill intentions when working with Shirley, or
do you believe that she was a victim of this period
in history?

What are your thoughts about Flora Schreiber’s
decision to continue writing the book after finding
out that the childhood abuse may not have taken
place? If any of the 3 women knew of the
implications that the story would have, do you think
that they would have went ahead with the book?