Hattie, like Sybil herself, was highly intelligent and creative, but her own background was also one which warped and stifled her. Without wishing to spoil the fascinating journey which awaits the reader of this well written book, which was written with the agreement of course of both the analysand (integrated Sybil) and her analyst, the basic overview is as follows:īorn in the 1920s into a rigid, repressed Christian sect household, in Wisconsin, with a history of mental illness, particularly on her mother’s side, Sybil had an extraordinary and terrible childhood visited on her by her mother, who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic.
It was an extremely fascinating re-read: the book had made a very strong impression on me, raising as it did questions about identity, however the re-read shows me much about my own development and understanding, as some questions which puzzled me on first reading have been answered as my own shifting perceptions about the nature of healing and holism have grown, and, perhaps, I have a greater personal understanding of the observer as an identity: a concept of the reflective mind which can stand outside the sometimes suffering deeply subjective and reactive self, and observe what is arising. Her book was initially published in the 70s Schreiber was a journalist and writer who specialised in the field of psychiatry. Sybil was analysed by Dr Cornelia Wilbur in the 1950s. It did perform the valuable service of sending me back to Flora Rheta Schreiber’s account of the psychoanalysis of ‘Sybil’ a 16 multiple personality.
I read this fascinating account of dissociation and fragmentation into multiple personalities many years ago, but have just re-read it, after reading a completely different kind of book (a novel) which dealt with the subject, and was, in my opinion, a poor book. More of the cells in our bodies do not share our DNA than are ‘us’ – we are indeed all multiples
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