Sybil By Flora Rheta Schreiber

Book report:

Sybil, a fictional novel based on a true story, is written by Flora Rheta Schreiber and published by Grand Central Publishing. It centers around a middle aged women, going through psychoanalysis to find a cure for her multiple personalities. Sybil has been experiencing “black outs” since a young age. Not knowing what happens during those hours, sometimes days, Sybil loses out on valuable time and memories. Through Dr. Wilbur, its discovered that Sybil has 16 different personalities and the road to merge them all into one begins. Traumatic childhood memories and unmentionable acts of abuse are visited, creating the road to recovery for Sybil Isabel Dorsett. The author, Schreiber, was a journalist and writer who specialized in

However, from the elevator, Sybil finds herself on the roads of Philadelphia without explanation of how she got there. Later, it is known that one of her blackouts has occured. In the summer of 1945, 22 year old Sybil first meets psychiatrist Dr. Wilbur, with both her parents Hattie Anderson and Willard Dorsett after being sent home from college because of mental challenges. Sybil talks about her stress at school and home but doesn’t let Dr. Wilbur in too much during their first meeting. Sybil enjoys the therapy sessions with the doctor and is confident they will help her, especially when psychoanalysis in Chicago is suggested as “Chicago meant not only moving closer to the truth about herself but also getting away from home.” (Schreiber 33) However, her parents dislike the psychiatrist, thinking she’s simply tricking Sybil. As a result, her very controlling mother, lied to Sybil by faking a telephone call and stopping contact with Dr. Wilbur one day as a result of failing to inform her that Sybil will be missing an appointment due to illness.Sybil learns the truth when Hattie finally decided to reveal what she did saying “‘Well, I help my finger on the button. I never made it. I never made that phone call.’” (Schreiber 39) Years later, Sybil reached out and met with Dr. Wilbur once again. Through therapy sessions, Sybil’s other personalities slowly began to appear, the first one being Peggy

Sybil’s father Willard is a business owner, making their family one of the wealthiest families in the town. For the first 18 years of her life, Sybil lived in what everyone called the white house with black shutters. Everyone who knew the Dorsett family had nothing bad to say although noting that “mother and daughter had emotional problems…. and the mother was ‘nervous’” (Schreiber 125) When Sybil was finally born after the couple experienced four miscarriages, it set Hattie into depression. Also not liking the name Sybil, she made it a point to call “her daughter Peggy Louisiana, which later was often abbreviated to Peggy Lou, Peggy Ann, or just Peggy.” (Schreiber 128) Sybil found comfort in her grandma, and thought of it as a time to escape Hattie’s accusations. When grandma died, Sybil had a hard time coping and “turned into” Peggy. Next thing Sybil knows, she’s in grade 5, having lost years of time. She now has a difficult time fitting in to life, not knowing who many of the people and events her family mentions. Sybil finds comfort in Danny, a close friend, but her father highly disapproves this friendship, and soon, Danny and his family moves away from Willow Corners forever. To cope with this lose, Vicky appeared, and soon after, Mary. Back in present day, Dr. Wilbur meets other personalities of Sybil including Mary Dorsett, a maternal and loving person; Marica