Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case Paperback – June 12, 2012

I found M's Nathan's book incredibly interesting. I remember when the book Sybil came out. It was beyond my understanding that a mother could do all those horrible, horrible things to her child. And that in a little town, nobody noticed? I mean, it was a small town, everybody knew each other's business. At the time period Shirley (Sybil's real name) grew up in, every parent in town could and did act as unsupervised child's parent.The massive amount of uppers and downers alone used on Shirley would make a "normal" person hallucinate. Toss in some shock therapy and induced comas for good measure and you have a very fertile ground for "memories" that may or may not be true. I know people who remember an incident happening one way but actually they weren't even present with the incident occurred. I have even done that myself - part of it stemming from having heard about the incident so much I actually think I was a party to it.But M's Nathan doesn't claim to be a shrink. She doesn't claim that MPD (now relabeled DID) are not real. She claims in this particular set of circumstances, this person was not suffering from MPD/DID. I didn't see the "agenda" other readers suggested. I seen a lot of research went into this book.The important points regarding this case is that Dr Wilbur crossed the line between client and doctor in so many ways. Dr Wilbur also did not conduct her work with Sybil in a therapeutic way. The amount of drugs used and the shock therapy were not within therapeutic levels. The vacations of doctor and patient, the gifts, giving Shirley a job in her office is wrong. This is not "normal" therapy and was in the long run very damaging to Shirley.And the thought that the three women (Wilbur, Schrieber and Shirley) decided to make a cottage industry out of Shirley's illness is incredible. A "Sybil" board game? "Sybil" t-shirts? And it almost worked. These three women perpetuated a fraud on the world for their own gain. And Dr Wilbur got the best deal of all. Dr Wilbur got her share and a big chunk of Shirley's share because Shirley used her portion to pay off her therapy bill. This information has been documented.Dr Wilbur cheated Shirley out of a life to further her own career. Shirley could be treated for what now would be depression or maybe social anxiety and be able to live a productive life - to work and to love. That's is one of the biggest crimes of Shirley's case - Dr Wilbur got a lot of money and fame and "Sybil" is used as a synonym for a crazy person.This is a great book Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Caseand I loved finding out the "behind the scenes" of the book and movie.Sybil (Two-Disc Special Edition) If you read the book or seen the movie, you would want to check this book out and make your own decision.

If you're looking for a potboiler like the book Sybil, you might find Sybil Exposed dry reading. If so, here's a sexed-up summary: an unsavory psychiatrist gets hold of a nice but troubled young woman, preys on her need for attention, and turns her into a drug addict and makes her dependent on her in her quest for money and recognition. An unscrupulous author makes them out to be heroines. This, as my mother put it, is the story that should be made into a TV movie.On the other hand, if you enjoy critical thinking, debunking, and digging into the facts, this book is up your alley. Author Debbie Nathan researched Sybil through previous interviews with her friends and family (some earlier researchers had uncovered Sybil's identity) and records that were recently unsealed. She brings to light the disturbing motives and methods of Sybil's psychiatrist (go to Google Scholar and enter wilbur and lobotomy) and Flora Rheta Schreiber, the author of the book Sybil. However, Nathan doesn't paint anyone as purely selfish or innocent: Wilbur devoted a lot of time and effort to her patients and seemed to think she was doing the right thing. Sybil wrote a long confession recanting her multiple personalities and accusations of abuse. Schreiber, the author of the original book Sybil, was once a serious young woman.Schreiber's own fact checking of Sybil's story should have ended her book project. Poking around Sybil's home town, she heard nobody mention Sybil's mother defecating on lawns or having lesbian orgies in the woods. There were no woods around the town. Sybil's childhood doctor was long dead and his patients' records destroyed. None of Sybil's friends in New York remembered her breaking glass or dissociating, except for her roommate, who'd been briefed on Sybil's condition. The book has many more examples like these. It's hard to prove something never happened, but when so many elements of a story don't check out, the story is probably false.Why dig into the story after all these years? Because the truth matters. The book is a reminder to use our critical thinking, explore alternative hypotheses and avoid putting ourselves in the hands of a guru.