Preview

Sybil Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
520 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Sybil Essay
Personal response
The Life of Sybil
By Yasmin Brown

After watching the movie Sybil, I was extremely intrigued by it, I found it to be very fascinating and amazing. For a person to have 16 different personalities is just jaw dropping. On some websites I read about how Sybil and Dr.Wilbur were being criticized and that Dr.Wilbur diagnosed Sybil with Multiple Personality disease so that she could get a book deal from it. I don’t really now why anyone would actually do that but just so that I was more informed I decide to research the disease a bit more. Multiple Personality disorder also known as Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a disorder that describes a condition in which a single person displays multiple identities or personalities (known as alter egos or), each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. The diagnosis requires that at least two personalities routinely take control of the individual's behaviour with an associated memory loss that goes beyond normal forgetfulness; in addition, symptoms cannot be due to drug use or medical condition. In Sybil’s case this disease was brought on by her extremely sad and troubled childhood. Sybil’s mother was extremely mean towards Sybil she would push her and even go as far as breaking her larynx. Many people have theorized that severe sexual, physical or physiological trauma in a childhood is a trait from DID, I think that what happened with Sybil was definitely caused by this, even in the movie Dr.Wilbur says that all of Sybil’s personalities were because of the traumatic relationship she had with her mother when she was a child and growing up, and because her father did not support or try to help her.I have heard of people with multiple personalities but to be honest, the most I had heard of before seeing this movie was two, maybe three at the most, I have never ever heard of sixteen personalities and it makes me wonder if it was all real I mean how can someone have

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Multiple Personality Disorder is also called Dissociative Identity Disorder. According to Psychology Today, “Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a severe condition in which two or more distinct identities, or personality states, are present in—and alternately take control of—an individual. The person also experiences memory loss that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness” (Psychology Today, 2008). Dissociative Identity Disorder is caused by a traumatic injury, mentally or physical, that happened during childhood.…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bond University Essay

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Bond University offers a broad range of internationally recognised undergraduate and postgraduate (coursework and research) degrees across its Faculties of Law, Business, Humanities & Social Sciences and Health Sciences & Medicine; and Institute of Sustainable Development and Architecture. With an internationally diverse, close-knit community of around 4,500 students, Bond University offers the Australia’s lowest student-to-staff ratio, enabling small class sizes that encourage productive engagement and individual mentoring. This personalised approach to education, combined with its uncompromising focus on industry relevance, Bond University apart from every other Australian university. Bond's three semesters per year schedule facilitates accelerated study programs, allowing students to complete a six-semester bachelor degree in two years instead of three, or a master’s in 12 months.…

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Psy 270 Appendix G

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages

    People with different personalities can be given the same diagnosis if it is a general diagnoses. This occurs because individuals with differing personalities can have the same symptoms but handle them differently because they…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Originally Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) was called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), but was changed to (DID) because (MPD) made it sound like there were multiple people living in one body. The name change corrected this theory. One controversy surrounding this disorder is that the person suffering may be faking the illness to avoid stress. It is difficult to answer this question because people with this problem may seem or act questionable because the therapist may ask certain leading questions either during therapy or while the client is being hypnotized. Some cases have also shown that therapists can plant false memories in clients. The client actually believes the incident that happened…

    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Major Films Three Faces of Eve and A Beautiful Mind involve psychological disorders, disorders that aren’t particularly common. Both films portray disorders from their main characters. Schizophrenia from A Beautiful Mind, and DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) from Three Faces of Eve tell the story of a charcter living with the disorder. Although both disorders are commonly confused, DID and schizophrenia differentiate in symptoms and effects on daily life. Even medication effects can differ between the disorders.…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the movie, “Me, Myself & Irene”, the main character, Charlie Baileygates, played by Jim Carrey, is diagnosed with a split personality, also known as dissociative identity disorder. What that means is, at some point in the movie, he develops a second personality, and that personality goes by the name of Hank. Through out the movie, viewers are able to see the symptoms of someone with DID, and see how it can affect their daily life.…

    • 1451 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Yvain Essay

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Yvain the Knight with the Lion, there are many qualities of a medieval epic, such as loyalty, a quest, and a call to adventure. Although each of these are very consistent characteristics only one quality is emphasized throughout the entire book. Throughout the book the one quality shown most frequently is loyalty. We see this both through Lady lunette’s constant loyalty to the lady, as well and the Ladies loyalty to her husband, and in Yvain’s lion. Loyalty is the one quality that stands out as the most prominent throughout the entire story.…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Theories are used to define and explain the world around us. In essence, theories are frameworks for explaining various events or processes. (Baron & Byrne, 2003). Claude Levi Strauss (as cited in Fourie, 2001) maintained that a single logic underlies the structure of all theories. Seemingly contradictions between theories can be reduced to binary oppositions. Theories can thus be reduced to oppositional pairs that produce meaning. Therefore, according to Strauss, society can only understand and give meaning to processes through the contradictionary theories from which they emerge. Fundamentally then, a thesis is always followed by an antithesis, and at best, a synthesis of the thesis and the antithesis would result in the best theory of a phenomenon (Sternberg, 2003). Dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder, is a dramatic condition in which two or more relatively independent personalities appear to exist in one person (Sue, Sue & Sue, 2003). Because of the complexity of the disorder, many theories have been developed to offer explanations for the cause of the disorder. As with most explanations for complex phenomena, these theories often clash or offer contrasting rationalizations. Controversy also surrounds the disorder because when the disorder became popularised in the 1970’s, the number of cases of DID rose from less than two hundred cases reported worldwide a year to six thousand cases reported each year (Milstone, 1997; as cited in Sue et al, 2003). Some clinicians believe that DID is relatively common but is underreported because of misdiagnosis, others believe that the prevalence of DID is overestimated because of reliance on questionable self-report measures (Sue et al, 2003). In a survey of psychologists conducted by Cormier and Thelen (1998; as cited by Sue et al, 2003), most psychologists believed DID to be a rare but valid diagnosis. Fifty three percent said they did not think the disorder…

    • 2627 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Secret Window

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Before explaining Mort Rainey’s portrayal of this disorder, let’s look at some of the symptoms of DID. One symptom that is included in DSM-IV-TR criteria is amnesia. Amnesia in this case refers to dissociative amnesia and dissociative fugue. Dissociative amnesia is the inability to recall personal information. Dissociative fugue is an inability to recall the past, often featuring a sudden, unexpected travel away from home. In DID, it is relatively unimportant how many personalities…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Imagine you're having a conversation with a friend who is a slender, attractive young woman. It's a casual chat about nothing in particular between friends. You take out a pack of cigarettes and immediately sense a change, your friend's body twitches slightly and her mannerism changes. Her shoulders square, she puts her feet flat on the floor and assumes an instinctively masculine pose. Placing her hands on her knees, she leans toward you, and says in a voice that has dropped two octaves, "Excuse me, ma'am. I really favor those cigarettes you have. Mind if I have one? I'd be most beholden to you." Your friend is gone and a strange man has popped in, literally. Again, you and your friend are walking from your car to a store, as you cross the parking lot her demeanor again abruptly changes. Her steps have become smaller, slower and clumsy as she grabs your hand and says, "This is a really big street with cars on it. We got to hold hands and look both ways." Your friend seems to have decreased 15 years in age as fast as a flip of a switch. You might think your friend is playing a prank on you because this seems like something you would see in a movie but in all actuality your friend is showing symptoms Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). You might be thinking is someone with this problem possessed? What causes it? Am I at risk? But most importantly, does Multiple Personality Disorder really exist?…

    • 2104 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Weissberg, M. (1993). Multiple personality disorder and iatrogenesis: the cautionary tale of Anna O. The…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dissociative Identity Disorder has remained a highly skeptical disorder because, some of the most important cases pertaining to DID have years later come out and said they made up the entire story (Frank Putnam 2012).Although DID is a real disorder for some people other people may use DID as a get out of jail free card or use it as a “social factor rather than a traumatic factor” (G.A. et al.2013).Many people in the medical field believe that DID can be widely influenced by social factors like movies, books, highly publicized court cases involving…

    • 1445 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “For a variety of reasons there has been little dialogue among the disciplines that study patients with trauma and those that study and treat substance abuse. Little systematic investigation exists on the treatment of DID in general, and substance abuse in DID in particular” (1). Dissociative Identity Disorder is defined in Essentials of Abnormal Psychology as “a disorder in which as many as 100 personalities or fragments of personalities coexist within one body and mind” (Durand & Barlow, pg. 188). More commonly known as “multiple personality disorder,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, also known as The DSM-IV, changed the name to Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID, for various reasons. One main reason being that a patients personality is the sum of identities, which may have split off in the past due to individual or multiple traumatic events. Patients believe they have multiple personalities which take on a life of their own within themselves. Professionals sometimes use the term “alters” to reference the multiple personalities associated with DID, and use the term “host” in reference to the patient. “How many personalities live inside one body is relatively unimportant. This change also corrects the notion that multiple people somehow live inside one body” (Durand & Barlow, pg. 189). Dissociative Identity Disorder is also defined as a disturbance in the normally integrative functions of memory, identity, and consciousness.…

    • 2469 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Childhood Schizophrenia

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Schizophrenia is an illness that was named by Eugen Bleuler in 1908. Bleuler named the illness Schizophrenia because the illness is essentially the splitting of the mind that causes the mind to no longer function as a whole, with behavior, emotion, and reason working together. It does not mean there are multiple personalities, but rather multiple realities (FUSAR-POLI, PAOLO, and PIERLUIGI POLITI). Schizophrenia is one of the most difficult mental illnesses to understand because every culture has a different experience with how Schizophrenia works. Both genders are equally affected, all races are equally affected, and no matter the location of the occurrence all of the population is affected by having a 1% chance of getting Schizophrenia (Versola-Russo.)…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    MPD is a severed form of dissociation from reality in which it reflects a person’s extreme lack of connectivity to the world he is in today with regard to his identity, thoughts, feelings and actions. Because of what he or she went through at one phase of his or her life, this person literally dissociates himself from a situation that posed significant threat on them as a coping mechanism. Even with this analysis of the disorder, experts are even still at times confused with several aspects of it, and even wonder if the disorder is real. A person with MPD is often deemed to have two or even more distinct and split personalities that simultaneously have effect on their behavior. Sometimes it seems like there are two are persons continually emerging on one body, which is aside from being sad, is really scary as well. Because of having too many persona as we can call it, the person have an inability to recall personal information that borders on being weird because it is an information he as the owner should know, and is too extreme to be just forgetfulness (WebMd).…

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays