Sybil - Dissociative Identity Disorder

Sybil Dorsett, a teacher at a public school, doesn't know what is happening to her. For years she has been experiencing blackouts, some for months at a time and cannot recall what she was doing at the time. She begins to go to therapy sessions with Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, who decides to take on Sybil's strange case. At first, Sybil seems fine during her therapy sessions, but as time progresses, her behavior becomes more and more erratic. Sometimes she is extremely shy, other times extremely belligerent, and sometimes even speaks with different accents. She seems to have many different personalities; Dr. Wilbur counted at least 16 different personalities that Sybil displayed through various sessions of Hypnosis. Only after months of therapy does Dr. Wilbur discover the source of Sybil's strange multiple personality disorder. She had suffered vicious abuse at the hands of her fanatically religious mother as a child, most of which involved sexual abuse. Dr. Wilbur realizes that Sybil has developed so many personalities because they are pieces of Sybil that protect her through times of stress.

This relates to psychology because Sybil is suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities (known as alter egos or alters), each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. This diagnosis requires that people have two or more personalities that take over frequently that is associated with memory loss, which goes beyond normal forgetfulness. It is widely believed that this disorder develops as a way to suppress bad memories, or undesirable impulses. Most people suffering from DID suffered abuse as a child.