Sybil

Sybil (1973) by Flora Rheta Schreiber. I read this book for the Hope Center book group. It was chosen by popular vote, so I went along. I found it to be fairly interesting, although I have read books and seen movies on the same subject in the past. Sybil is a woman with 16 separate personalities, none of which she is conscious of. She was severely abused by her mother as a child, and her psyche fractured into different personalities in order to deal with different aspects of the abuse. Dr. Wilbur helps her, through psychoanalysis, to re-integrate her personality. The abuse that Sybil suffers at the hands of her mother is shocking (it really amounts to torture), and her recovery is touching. It's quite a good book, but also quite dated, having been written almost 40 years ago. A lot has changed in the meantime; for example, I doubt if any psychiatrist today would use sodium pentothal to treat a case of dissociative identity disorder, the current name for Sybil's illness. But in spite of these quibbles, the book is a worthwhile read. Grade: B+