Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case
    Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case
    Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case
    Audiobook9 hours

    Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case

    Written by Debbie Nathan

    Narrated by Marguerite Gavin

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    SYBIL: A name that conjures up enduring fascination for legions of obsessed fans who followed the nonfiction blockbuster from 1973 and the TV movie based on it-starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward-about a woman named Sybil with sixteen different personalities. Sybil became both a pop phenomenon and a revolutionary force in the psychotherapy industry. The book rocketed multiple personality disorder (MPD) into public consciousness and played a major role in having the diagnosis added to the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.But what do we really know about how Sybil came to be? In her news-breaking book Sybil Exposed, journalist Debbie Nathan gives proof that the allegedly true story was largely fabricated. The actual identity of Sybil (Shirley Mason) has been available for some years, as has the idea that the book might have been exaggerated. But in Sybil Exposed, Nathan reveals what really powered the legend: a trio of women-the willing patient, her ambitious shrink, and the imaginative journalist who spun their story into bestseller gold.From horrendously irresponsible therapeutic practices to calculated business decisions, the story Nathan unfurls is full of over-the-top behavior. Sybil's psychiatrist, driven by undisciplined idealism and galloping professional ambition, subjected the young woman to years of antipsychotics, psychedelics, uppers, and downers, including an untold number of injections with Pentothal, once known as "truth serum" but now widely recognized to provoke fantasies. It was during these "treatments" that Sybil produced the rambling, garbled, and probably "false memory"-based narratives of the hideous child abuse that her psychiatrist said caused her MPD.Sybil Exposed uses investigative journalism to tell a fascinating tale that reads like fiction but is fact. Nathan has followed an enormous trail of papers, records, photos, and tapes to unearth the lives and passions of these three women. The Sybil archive became available to the public only recently, and Nathan is the first person to have examined all of it and to provide proof that the story was an elaborate fraud-albeit one that the perpetrators may have half-believed.Before Sybil was published, there had been fewer than 200 known cases of MPD; within just a few years after, more than 40,000 people would be diagnosed with it. Set across the twentieth century and rooted in a time when few professional roles were available to women, this is a story of corrosive sexism, unchecked ambition, and shaky theories of psychoanalysis exuberantly and drastically practiced. It is the story of how one modest young woman's life turned psychiatry on its head and radically changed the course of therapy, and our culture, as well.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 26, 2011
    ISBN9781452675862
    Author

    Debbie Nathan

    Debbie Nathan was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She has been a journalist, editor and translator for almost three decades. She specializes in writing about immigration, the U.S.-Mexico border, sexual politics and sex panics, particularly in relation to women and children. Debbie is author and co-author of four books, including Sybil, Inc. She has been involved in translating two others into English — one from Spanish and the other from Latin American Yiddish. Her essays appear in several anthologies, and her work has been published in venues as varied as Redbook and The Nation, Ms. and Playboy, The Texas Observer and Social Text, The New York Times and Vibe. Debbie’s work has won numerous national and regional awards, including: The H.L. Mencken Award for Investigative Journalism, PEN West Award for Journalism, several prizes from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, the Texas Institute of Letters Award for feature journalism, the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for Journalism, and the John Bartlow Martin Award (from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism) for Public Service Journalism. She is a board member of the National Center for Reason and Justice (NCRJ), an “innocence project” for people falsely accused of harming children. She currently lives in New York City with her husband, Morten Naess, a family physician, and has two grown children, Sophia and Willy.

    Related to Sybil Exposed

    Related audiobooks

    Social Science For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Murder Of James Bulger 30 Years On

      Feb 7, 2023

      This week marks 30 years since two-year-old James Bulger was abducted and murdered by two 10-year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. James would be in his 30s now. Would he be married? A father? With a career? All that was snatched away from

      4 min read

    • Article

      Name That KILLER

      May 7, 2020

      When sex workers in Dallas, Texas, started showing up dead with their eyeballs missing, terror spread through the city. Many people are fascinated by eyes, but none as much as the Eyeball Killer. Charles Frederick Albright was born in Texas in 1933.

      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘Go Ahead, Kill Her’

      Aug 6, 2020

      ‘Go Ahead, Kill Her’
      4 min read

    • Article

      Taken…TWICE

      Jul 22, 2021

      If you’re planning to watch Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix, save this read for later. The Berchtolds and the Brobergs met at church in Pocatello, Idaho, USA, in 1972. Bob and Mary Ann Broberg and their three girls, and Robert and Gail Berchtold w

      3 min read

    • Article

      3-Year-Old In Idaho Dies After She Was Stabbed At Her Birthday Party

      Jul 3, 2018

      The girl was one of six children and three adults stabbed in Boise over the weekend. Timmy Kinner was taken into custody after the attack and was charged with first-degree murder, among other things.

      1 min read

    • Article

      “My Baby Was Stolen From Me”

      May 18, 2022

      “My Baby Was Stolen From Me”
      9 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jun 12, 2019

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Mar 2, 2022

      Book Club
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Life Of Sojourner Truth

      Oct 6, 2022

      The Life Of Sojourner Truth
      8 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jul 10, 2019

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Sep 15, 2021

      Of the 1000-plus books that have landed on my desk since the debut of this feature, not one has been as astonishing as this one. Brooks is Scientia Professor of Evolution at UNSW Sydney, where he founded and directs the Evolution and Ecology Research

      5 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Li, Bender, Smith, and More

      Jul 28, 2020

      We take a look at some notable books—including titles from Yiyun Li, Aimee Bender, and Zadie Smith—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Li, Bender, Smith, and More appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Sep 7, 2023

      Great Read
      7 min read

    • Article

      My Queer Southern Lit

      Nov 28, 2018

      My Queer Southern Lit
      6 min read

    • Article

      Great Reads

      Apr 6, 2024

      By David Goodwin Servo: Tales from the Graveyard Shift is a vivid memoir by David Goodwin, recounting his bizarre and humorous experiences working night shifts at Melbourne service stations. It’s a journey through the chaos of drive-offs, spiked slur

      1 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Wayne, Okparanta, Chang, and More

      Jul 12, 2022

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Teddy Wayne, Chinelo Okparanta, K-Ming Chang, and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The Mill

      10 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Sybil Exposed

    4/5

    134 ratings20 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      We studied this book for my masters in marriage and family therapy (MFT). Our class literally used it to examine the ethics surrounding the client/therapist relationship and what NOT to do.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Books I am reading do not usually give me nightmares, but this one did.

      Long ago, when I was in graduate school studying psychology, I was known to say that the problem with a condition like multiple personality disorder (MPD) was that if a psychologist or psychiatrist suspected that a patient _might_ have such a condition, it would be nearly impossible not to imagine the potential gold mine (books, movies, publicity) that the patient could provide. Well, it turns out that in the case of one of the most famous cases of MPD, that's exactly what happened.

      Ambitious, domineering psychiatrist (Wilbur) meets highly suggestible patient (Mason) with undiagnosed and untreated pernicious anemia who develops a monstrous crush on the therapist, and when the two of them run into a journalist (Schreiber) who is comfortable with bending and twisting the truth, Sybil is born. It's hard to entirely resist the inference that some kind of lesbian passion -- repressed or not -- helped fuel the folie a deux between Dr. Connie Wilbur and Shirley Mason. Flora Schreiber, at least, should have known better. The fact that the three of them incorporated Sybil reveals just how baldly the lure of money and fame fueled their collaboration.

      Why am I so disturbed by this old story when all of the protagonists are long dead? Because MPD begat the wave of people remembering "repressed memories" of their parents doing things like roasting babies in the back yard. And that hysteria landed a bunch of child care providers in jail for committing crimes that were impossible and for which there was no evidence.

      It's also a good example of a woman (Mason) with a very real medical condition (pernicious anemia) being diagnosed as having a psychiatric disorder. This is all too often the way that women's health issues (especially autoimmune diseases) are handled by the medical system.

      As much as I enjoyed Toni Colette's terrific and funny turn as a woman with multiple personalities, it's important for the public to understand that real cases of MPD/DID are extremely rare -- if not non-existent.

      I highly recommend this book to anyone who has the stomach to read it. It's as involving as any page-turner, but the story it tells is ultimately horrifying.

      (Note: The unabridged version of this review -- with pictures! -- is now on my blog, "Cuppa with Candace," at candacevan.wordpress.com.
    • 5/5
      Sybil Exposed is a must read for anyone who still believes in multiple personality disorder. The book Sybil was a complete fraud. In this amazing expose Debbie Nathan tells how Sybil, an educated, intelligent teacher was drugged by her therapist and actually made up her personalities after being addicted to an enormous number of drugs. If Sybil did not come up with another personality the therapist would cut her off from drugs causing her to go into painful withdrawal. The author conspired with the therapist and the publisher to make a powerhouse book telling untruths about Sybils mother who was an ordinary caring person. The mother DID NOT deficate on peoples lawns nor did she hang Syble up by her feet and give her enemas. She also did not play pony with her Sunday school class and shove her fingers up their private parts while they were playing pony on all fours. The book also covers the history of mental health madness that caught up the after Freud became popular. Roddy McDowell was one of Sybil's therapist's patients and his homosexuality became a national scandle. This information about Roddy was confidential and the writer of Sybil exposed him in a book she wrote prior to Sybil.In the end, the book and movie of Sybil made a fortune.
    • 5/5
      Wow!! So well researched! Very interesting and very sad that the real Sybil was made into a drug-addict and exploited in the name of fame and money.
    • 4/5
      This book is well researched and well-written. The author breaks down the myth many of us held about "Sybil" and the doctor who was supposed to be helping her. This story is made all the more tragic because several people saw the glaring inconsistencies in the account about Sybil but allowed themselves to be convinced otherwise.
    • 5/5
      Yet another horrifying book that's scarier than anything any horror author could conceive.

      I can't tell you how many times I shook my head in sadness or pain at what this poor woman when through her entire life.

      It's a saddening, maddening story that, unfortunately, is all too common.
    • 5/5
      This book was excellent t and gave a clear view of the history and practice of MPD multiple personality disorder) and DID (disassociative identity disorder). It was also quite alarming to see how the media and lack of ethical practices can harm entire industries, communities, and individual lives. The field of psychology and psychiatry and psycho-therapy are still conundrums to me but I feel this book was informative.
    • 5/5
      This quote sums the entire horrifying book to me:

      Almost four years had passed since Shirley [the real Sybil] first walked into Connie's [Dr. Wilbur] office as an upbeat graduate student with nagging but bearable emotional problems. Now, after hundreds of hours of therapy and countless pills, shots, and machine-induced convulsions, she was a thirty-five-year-old junkie who spent most of her time in bed and who, when she did get up, checked her mailbox for money from her father, or wandered the streets muttering to herself.

      Mid-book, I actually stopped reading to email two of my professors, telling them that this book should be required reading for graduate school students, as a warning: "This is why we tell you to not do this and never do that!"

    • 4/5
      Debbie Nathan grew her reputation by reporting on the ritual-abuse witch hunts of the 1980s and early 90s. Like her work then, this book is clear-eyed, rational, and very well researched. Anyone who read the shocking story of the woman with 16 personalities and thought it couldn't possibly be true can be congratulated. Of course it wasn't. It is a tale of bad science, professional ambition and outright fraud.Shirley Mason, the real name of the afflicted woman, was not so much treated as manipulated by psychoanalyst Cornelia Wilbur, who clearly created false memories of horrific abuse and created "alternate personalities" through hypnosis and drugs. These false memories and manufactured personalities were further distorted when Flora Schreiber was commissioned to write the famous book. Nathan shows us many instances of Schreiber blatantly fictionalizing aspects of Shirley's story for the sake of reader appeal and sensation.Near the end of the book, Nathan suggests that Shirley's neurotic symptoms had an organic cause which could have been easily addressed if her doctor had been more interested in helping than exploiting her. It is a very sad story of a human life sacrificed to a big lie.
    • 3/5
      At first, I was very turned off by this book, because it seemed like the author was condemning the entire history of psychiatry, especially hysteria diagnoses, by today’s standards – of course these beliefs seem insane - people used to believe the world was flat also (which, granted, probably didn’t harm anyone).

      But, as the meat of the book was addressed, the author won me over with her chronology of events in the life of Shirley Mason, the real woman behind the famous “Sybil” phenomenon, and her dysfunctional relationship (even by the standards of the day) with her avaricious doctor Connie Wilbur. The publicity surrounding this case influenced the practice of psychiatry for decades, irrevocably changing American society.
    • 4/5
      Debbie Nathan takes an in-depth look at the case of Sybil, a psychiatric case that sparked the multiple personality phenomenon. I thought this was a fascinating book. I know that many have criticized it because it was written after the death of the three main women, however I found it to be well written, engaging, and well researched. Overall, well worth reading.
    • 3/5
      The book Sybil captured the nation's imagination, but since then the idea of multiple personalities has been controversial at best in the psychological community. As you can guess from the title, this book is aiming to prove that Sybil's case was a fraud perpetrated on the American public by some combination of Sybil, her psychiatrist, and the journalist who wrote the original book. It's a pretty persuasive case, if you just take it all at face value (not that I'm suggesting you do so). The psychiatrist was an ambitious woman in a field where women didn't tend to get much recognition. The same goes for the journalist. And Sybil herself was a troubled young woman who wanted to be liked. Once she had started to give the "right" answers and get praise, she wasn't able to back out and tell the truth. Add into this that the psychiatrist used far too many drugs in her treatment of Sybil, and that she asked leading questions, and suddenly everything is called into question.The worst part of the entire affair is the treatment that Sybil didn't receive, which might have actually helped her. The second worst part is the treatment that Sybil *did* receive, which definitely didn't improve things and probably made them worse. And in third place for the worst part was the proliferation of repressed memories and multiple personality cases that created an atmosphere of hysteria (no coincidence to use that word, either, as related diagnoses became practically expected for troubled women). Some things are pretty clear: Sybil needed help. The psychiatrist was entirely too involved in Sybil's life. The journalist had to have her story, even if it required making some of it up. Just about everything else is open to argument and interpretation.A note about the audio version: there were some moments where the sentence phrasing got seriously strange, as if the narrator was reading along on teleprompter and thought there was going to be a comma where there wasn't or vice versa. She also has some very jarring mispronunciations, like "pundint" instead of "pundit" and "piqued" pronounced like "pee-cued." I'd probably recommend reading this one instead of listening to it.
    • 5/5
      Sybil Exposed by Debbie Nathan was so much more than I expected! Do you remember Sybil? You know, girl with 16 different personalities? You probably read about her in psychology class or maybe even have seen the Sally Fields movie?If you haven’t read Sybil, I highly suggest you do so (I reviewed it recently!), and then I suggest you grab Sybil Exposed as a sequel. Just so you know, if you haven’t checked out Sybil yet, you can still read this review because it’s not going to give away Sybil spoilers.Debbie Nathan dives into research about one of the most famous cases of multiple personality: Sybil. She uncovers facts that show that the nonfictional story of Sybil is a fabrication.For the full review, visit Love at First Book
    • 4/5
      My published Indienext blurb:

      The powerful character(s) of Sybil has been absorbed whole-heartedly into American culture since the 1973 release of the international bestselling psychological bio. Like millions of people who have read the book or seen the film adaption, I thought I knew the story behind the 20th century's most widely known multiple personality case, but the thorough investigation and captivating reporting of author Debbie Nathan has opened my eyes to one of the greatest psychiatric hoaxes of all time. Delving deep into the case history and lives of the three women central to the story of Sybil -- Shirley Mason, renamed Sybil in the book, her doctor Cornelia Wilbur, and author Flora Schreiber -- Nathan presents a thoroughly convincing argument detailing the manner in which in overly ambitious doctor with a pet theory played on the damaged psyche of an sensitive, insecure woman to create a psychiatric case that brought them fame and fortune, but not healing. A fascinating read.
    • 5/5
      This book is a long overdue examination of the infamous multiple personality case that spawned the MPD and later the recovered memory movements in the United States. With sympathy for everyone involved, Nathan takes a hard look at the bizarre methodology and ruthless behaviors of Dr. Connie Wilbur, the willingness of Flora Rheta Schrieber to bend and make up facts to make her book seem more credible, and the life of Shirley Mason, the real Sybil, whose life was ruined and whose physical and mental health was destroyed at the hands of Dr. Wilbur.There are many who are absolutely angry at this book and how it discusses the poor medical approaches used by Dr. Wilbur and exposing the truth behind the manipulations in the Sybil case (Shirley Mason was kept drugged to insensibility for years, she lived in a strange, jealous arrangement with Dr. Wilbur after Wilbur's husband died, and she suffered from pernicious anemia, a condition which explains everything Wilbur observed that made her immediately diagnose Sybil as having MPD before she ever saw an "alter" and so much more). These people think that discrediting the Sybil case somehow discredits the idea that atrocious abuse happens to children.They're wrong. The Sybil case became a beacon for child abuse advocates and shined a light on child abuse, especially sexual abuse victims. But it also spawned hideous copycat books like When Rabbit Howls and Michelle Remembers, it created a bad protocol for dealing with memory in therapy and it created moral panics, like the Satanic Panic in the USA, wherein many therapeutic and law enforcement resources were wasted on shadows and diverted from real and less sensationalist abuse and people who entered therapy for mild problems left therapy shattered and estranged forever from their families.This is an absolute must-read for anyone who is interested in how hoaxes can be perpetrated, sometimes with the best of intentions, and how the therapeutic community engaged in some really bad work stemming from Dr. Wilbur's famous case. Moreover, it is an excellent sleuth read as Nathan goes back in time and picks the case apart. Fascinating book, utterly fascinating.
    • 2/5
      I enjoyed the background information provided here. I could have done without the debate over if MPD exists. I find parts of the book hard to believe because the author states several times that much of the information that was the background of the original book, no longer exists. None of the characters in this book can defend themselves. I know that life was different back when the original story took place. I am sure we could go back into lots of subjects and find things that could now be held to a different standard. I believe that Flora was out for money and that she had a deadline for her story. I truly believe that Connie was interested in Shirley and did want the best for her. I feel the most sorrow for Shirley as she certainly had some sort of mental illness and was exploited in some ways. She was looking for love and help and I am not sure that she got what she was hoping for.
    • 4/5
      In the 1970s the country was mesmerized by the story of Sybil, an unassuming young woman who had suffered child abuse so cruel and relentless that her psyche fractured into 16 separate personalities. Tormented by amnesia and psychosomatic complaints, she finally faced her past and took control of her life with the help of an understanding psychoanalyst. Or at least, that was the story everyone thought they knew. But recent publications have accused that psychoanalyst, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, and the author of the popular book about the case, Flora Schrieber, of exaggerating their claims. And in this book Debbie Nathan presents evidence that the whole story may have been fabricated and Sybil may actually have been suffering from an undiagnosed physical illness all along.Nathan certainly has a strong case when it comes to the treatment administered by Dr. Wilbur. Recent history has brought devastating revelations about the misguided psychiatric "therapies" used in the past. Nathan's anger comes through clearly when she describes how Dr. Wilbur's use of electroshock and irresponsible amounts of addictive drugs left her patient a helpless wreck during what should have been the most productive years of her life. But Nathan goes further: she accuses the doctor of forcing Sybil to sever ties with everyone from her past and live a cloistered existence in her doctor's shadow in order to preserve her own anonymity after the book was published and became a massive bestseller. Meanwhile, Dr. Wilbur became a star in the psychiatric world.It's harder to assign blame to Schrieber, the author of the book. She was an ambitious writer of popular magazine stories who shaped the book to make it a bestseller. Here Nathan speculates that the constraints placed on female accomplishment in the early to mid-20th century drove both Schrieber and Wilbur to self-aggrandizement at the expense of the woman whose story they were supposedly telling. An interesting theory, but not much more than speculation.The least satisfying part of the book involved Sybil's actual early life. I well remember the oppressive, gothic atmosphere conjured by Schrieber in describing Sybil's home town. But Sybil's childhood was 80 years ago; records have been destroyed, and witnesses have died out. There's really no way to know why so many people described Sybil's mother as "strange." I did note that Nathan mentioned the physical illness that Sybil suffered from is hereditary, and that her mother had symptoms -- is it possible that Sybil was affected by instances where her mother acted strangely because of this illness?In all, a very intriguing and well-written book. Nathan makes her case that Sybil was probably not what Dr. Wilbur claimed she was -- but she cannot satisfactorily answer the most interesting question: what was really going on in her life?
    • 5/5
      Sybil became popular, both in psychiatry and modern culture in the 1970's. Both the book and the movie made the complex disorder known as "Multipersonality" a phenomenon, though sensationalizing it, as well. Not only did it bring this disorder to the spotlight in mental health, it created a catchphrase and controversy, in spite of its horrific nature.Psychiatry and psychology are not absolute, as the mind is a complex, hidden area. The memory is not always exact in time or place, being affected by many things. It deals with fact, feelings, and the shaded grey areas in between. The mind deals with the melding of both fact and feeling. Sometimes the mind remembers what the heart may have felt. History is recounted by what the mind remembers, sometimes losing things to interpretation, and sometimes colored by emotion, whether intentional or not.For many years, the story of Sybil, as well as the ethics and motivations of her therapist have been questioned. This book is written by investigative reporters whose goal is to shed light on the truth of Sybil's case, as well as the disorder.Letters and documentation were supplied by the family of Sybil to researchers of what is now known as "DID", Dissociative Identity Disorder. This disorder is still misunderstood and often misdiagnosed. The intent was to dispel myths, answering decades of questions and speculation.Notes at the end of this fascinating book list the documents used and the resources that Debbie Nathan was privy to, in her writing of "Sybil Exposed". I have no doubt that Sybil and her case will continue to be controversial, as will DID.
    • 3/5
      A moderately interesting book that left me feeling a bit foolish as it didn't occur to me, way back when I read "Sybil" that publishers would print untruths like this. I'm sure it didn't help the publisher of "Sybil" that Wilbur and Schreiber were such accomplished liars.As I said, it's an interesting expose, but I am glad that I got it from the library instead of buying it.
    • 5/5
      Who doesn't remember reading Sybil as a teen, and the effect it had on them?I found this "expose" of Dr. Connie Wilbur and her mistreatment and symbiotic and odd relationship with the real Sybil to be fascinating!This book appears to have many people divided over if Sybil was or was not telling the truth and influenced by Dr Wilbur. I have no doubt that Sybil was full of emotional problems. That said, Dr Wilbur clearly blurred many lines of professionalism and I do believe fabricated the majority of the story which we read in 1973.