On May 22, 1973, a book years in the making hit the shelves and a strange societal obsession with Sybil followed suit. With the help of Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, the featured psychoanalyst of the novel, Multiple Personality Disorder became a very serious issue in the psychological world and much more prevalent in America. With the help of Flora Schreiber, a previous journalist and author of Sybil, Dr. Wilbur was able to have such success with the story of her long-time patient, Shirley Mason. In Debbie Nathan’s Sybil Exposed, Nathan unearths the truth of this trio to find that much of Sybil’s story was fabricated and immensely based on shoddy evidence. She tells a tale of three women trying to succeed in a man’s world, of unrestrained and unchecked ambitions, and elaborate lies. It is an awakening commentary and explanation to a narrative that captured our public and culture.
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They are highlighted through the life of Shirley although it is fairly likely that it was her pernicious anemia resulting from a vitamin B-12 deficiency that caused confusion with her identity as well as other life long aliments. It is very possible that a psychological disorder in which a traumatic experience causes the splitting of the psyche is entirely nonexistent. Another disorder featured in the journalistic piece is hysteria, what many women were diagnosed with before MPD and is a definite condition including symptoms of psychological stress and physical symptoms such as selective amnesia and overdramatic and attention seeking behavior. PTSD, or shell shock, is also noticeable