End to a Twisted and False Episode in Psychiatry
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March April pages_SI new design masters 2/1/12 12:11 PM Page 54 [REVIEWS End to a Twisted and False Episode in Psychiatry JAMES M. WOOD orror stories can reveal and feed a society’s darkest fantasies. The HMonk, the famous Gothic novel Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the published by Matthew Lewis in 1796, Famous Multiple Personality Case. By Debbie is a striking example. With its portrait Nathan. Free Press, New York, 2011. ISBN: 978- of lascivious monks and murderous 1439168271. 320 pp. Hardcover, $26. nuns, The Monk reflected negative stereotypes about Catholics that were widespread in England during the late 1700s. It also helped to reinforce and perpetuate those prejudices for decades to come. Sybil, published by Florence Rheta ful of MPD/DID cases had previously to The Monk among the Gothic horror Schreiber in 1973, is another famously been reported in the scientific literature. novels and other dark fantasies. lurid book that both reflected and After Sybil, the number skyrocketed Sybil Exposed presents overwhelming shaped the nightmares of its time. into the thousands. evidence that Shirley/Sybil never enacted Gothically dark but with gleams of The impact of Sybil was huge. For multiple personalities until she met light, it recounted the supposedly true decades afterward its spellbinding nar- Wilbur. The young patient’s florid symp- story of psychiatrist Cornelia Wilbur rative was accepted as factual. Schreiber toms emerged and morphed over a pe- and one of her patients, a fragile young declared in the book’s preface that it riod of years as she and Wilbur en gaged woman pseudonymously called Sybil to was a “true story,” and Wilbur herself in a complicated dance of mutually rein- protect her identity. During eleven years vouched for its accuracy during televi- forced self-deception. Ac cord ing to her of psychoanalysis Wilbur encountered sion appearances and professional con- own admission, Shirley pretended to sixteen of Sybil’s “alternate personali- ferences. However, it is now clear that have alter personalities because she ties,” which had supposedly developed neither Sybil nor Wilbur should ever wanted Wilbur’s attention. The doctor during childhood in reaction to horren- have been believed. In Sybil Exposed: quickly became fascinated by the dous sexual and physical abuse by Sybil’s The Extraordinary Story Behind the Fa- personalities and began planning how mother. The book recounted how Sybil mous Multiple Personality Case, inves- she might attain professional fame dealt with these traumatic memories tigative journalist Debbie Nathan has and money by publishing about them. under Wilbur’s healing influence and revealed the true story of Sybil, whose Wilbur then began using suggestive gradually integrated her “alters” into a real name was Shirley Mason. questions and barbiturate injections to single stable personality. Drawing from archives that only re- extract ever more bizarre allegations of A national best seller, Sybil was cently have been opened to the public, childhood abuse from her increasingly turned into an award-winning 1976 Nathan presents a description of disoriented patient. Meanwhile she re- television miniseries with Sally Field as Shirley/Sybil and Wilbur that is both cruited Florence Schreiber to write a Sybil and Joanne Woodward as Wilbur. compassionate and devastating. With a popularized book about the case. Soon afterward an epidemic of Multi- wealth of facts and extensive footnotes, Eventually Wilbur collaborated with ple Personality Disorder (MPD), also Nathan demonstrates that Sybil, both Schreiber to create a narrative full of known as Dissociative Identity Disor- the book and the miniseries, were fabrications. For instance, according to der (DID), swept across the United packed with lies and distortions. Mar- the book, Shirley’s father once con- States, persisting through the 1980s keted to the public as nonfiction, Sybil fessed to Wilbur that Shirley’s de ceased and into the early 1990s. Only a hand- instead should have been shelved next mother had been diagnosed with schiz- 54 Volume 36 Issue 2 | Skeptical Inquirer March April pages_SI new design masters 2/2/12 2:51 PM Page 55 ophrenia. However, documented evi- history of Wilbur and Sybil is by no peatedly associated with fraud and dence clearly shows that this supposed means an isolated example. Like the charlatanry, should be listed in the Di- confession never took place. Nor is House of Usher in Poe’s Gothic mas- agnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) there a shred of reliable evidence that terpiece, the edifice of MPD/DID of the American Psychiatric Associa- Shirley’s mother had schizophrenia or stands on cracked foundations and has tion, the so-called bible of psychiatry. any other psychotic disorder. Wilbur been shaken again and again by scandal The time has probably come to remove apparently allowed the phony confes- and strange doings. For instance, a lead- MPD/DID from the main part of the sion to be inserted into Sybil to lend it ing MPD/DID researcher, Ben nett DSM and exile it to the special appen- more credibility. Braun of Rush-Presbyterian Hospital dixes reserved for experimental, contro- Few topics in modern psychiatry in Chicago, was sued by a string of pa- versial, or culture-bound diagnostic cat- arouse more controversy than MPD/ tients in the mid-1990s after he diag- egories. DID. Many mental health professionals nosed them with MPD/DID and con- When MPD/DID is relegated to question whether the disorder even ex- vinced them that they were members of psychiatry’s back pages, professionals ists. According to these skeptics, Satanic cults. The story of Braun and MPD/DID is usually or always a so- his bizarre approach to psychiatry was fascinated with the disorder can still cially created condition, fostered and re- unforgettably depicted in The Search for study and discuss it to their hearts’ con- inforced in patients by suggestive ther- Satan, a PBS Frontline documentary by tent. Or perhaps it will eventually dis- apists such as Wilbur. These skeptics award-winning director Ofra Bikel. appear into the twilight, to be remem- contend that much of the supposed ev- The sad and twisted events pre- bered only as the specter of an idence for MPD/DID is based on shaky sented in Sybil Exposed and The Search embarrassing Gothic episode in the n stories, weak methodology, and ques- for Satan illustrate why many mental history of psychiatry. tionable data sources. health experts are skeptical regarding Sybil Exposed provides support for MPD/DID. This raises the point of James M. Wood is professor of psychology at the skeptics; furthermore, the strange whether this questionable disorder, re- the University of Texas at El Paso. A Droll Stroll Down Skeptical Lane JAMES UNDERDOWN eaders of this magazine or skep- tical literature in general might Rbe a bit leery of a book claiming Psychic Vibrations: Skeptical Giggles from the to tackle topics as varied as UFOs, Skeptical Inquirer. By Robert Sheaffer with cryptozoology, psychics, alternative illustrations by Rob Pudim. CreateSpace, 2011. medicine, and doomsday predictions. ISBN 978-1463601577. 332 pp. Paperback, $19.95. What encyclopedic magnum opus could hope to scratch the surface of such massive scope? Where could one possibly expect to find early musings about Uri Geller on one page and a re- port on the mermaids of New Guinea the next? Fear not, skeptics, for the an- write it today. The book, Psychic Vibra - never heard of or forgotten about. For swer lies not in a burdensome tome that tions, is a collection of the columns from example, you might know that a guy doubles as a soporific—it lies in Psychic 1977 to 1997, largely in their original named Kenneth Arnold gave rise to the Vibrations by Robert Sheaffer. form when they appeared in SI. term “flying saucer” after his UFO “Psychic Vibrations” is also the name For me, an avid reader of SKEPTICAL sighting in 1947. But were you aware of a regular SKEPTICAL INQUIRER col- INQUIRER since the late 1980s, this that Arnold believed that invisible umn that has been running since 1977. book was both an entertaining walk (UFO-borne) entities entered his Sheaffer has been its sole and official down memory lane and a source of new house? (That’s what he said: “I was author since 1980 and continues to information about claims I’d either aware of their presence because I could Skeptical Inquirer | March/April 2 012 5 5.