Sybil Exposed, Debbie Nathan
Sybil Exposed, Debbie Nathan
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Sybil Exposed
The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case

Author: Debbie Nathan

Narrator: Marguerite Gavin

Unabridged: 9 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/26/2011


Synopsis

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.

About Debbie Nathan

Monica Murphy is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the One Week Girlfriend series, the Billionaire Bachelors Club series, and numerous other contemporary romance novels. She also writes as USA Today bestselling author Karen Erickson. A native Californian, Monica lives in the foothills below Yosemite.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Candace on October 27, 2011

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 _migh......more

Goodreads review by Mike (the Paladin) on December 06, 2012

Back in 1974 I read a book called Sybil. Starting in 1973 and continuing on through today millions of people worldwide have read that book. The only difference is now there's a disclaimer on the book. Sybil tells the story of, well "Sybil" (a pseudonym) and how she had "blank spots", "lost time". She......more

Goodreads review by Jenny on March 08, 2012

A brilliant book that should be read by anyone who trusts a psychiatrist, because they didn't stop being like the woman profiled in this book when the 80s ended. I grew up among the psychiatrists of NYC in the 1950s, as my father worked with them, so nothing you would tell me about how screwed up an......more

Goodreads review by Carrie on November 29, 2021

A+, a virtually unimpeachable piece of investigative, historical journalism. Read it.......more

Goodreads review by Kelly (Maybedog) on June 19, 2012

In the course of reading this book, I went back and looked at summaries for the original Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities. I was in high school when I read the book but looking back from 2012 and my own age and experiences, I'm quite surprised anyone still......more