Sybil: There can be only one.

Would you rather be someone forgettable with no personality or someone with multiple personalities?

Trust me when I say that you would be much better should you prefer the former, because the latter is a mental disorder brought usually by trauma.

Today's film review will be about Sybil, a two-part three-hour long t.v miniseries from 1976, based on a book of the same name, which depicts the story of Sybil and her dissociative identity disorder. Together, Synil (with her other identities) and Dr. Wilbur (her psychiatrist) must work together to get to the cause of the disorder, unveiling Sybil's own dark and tragic past full of insanity, pain and abuse.

Dissociative identity disorder is a mental disorder characterized by having multiple personalities or identities in one bodies and memory loss (Kluff, 1996). Usually the transition of one identity to another will cause memory loss of the previous identity, as if the person has more than two souls in a body or is possessed by evil spirits. Causes of the disorder may include having being abused during childhood (Lewis et al., 1997) or low hippocampal and amygdalar volumes in the brain, which had been found to be linked with past abuse (Vermetten et al., 2006).


Exhibit A: Sybil's mother holding a buttonhook in preparation for Sybil's genital mutilation. 

In the film, Sybil (the original personality) was a timid student with a hidden tragic past of being abused by her own mother, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The abuse includes ranges from both emotional (destroying Sybil's crayons just because she colored her chickens unconventionally) to physical (mutilation of Sybil's genitalia). After a chain of abusive events, Sybil subconsciously created different identities for the sole purpose of coping with the trauma and repressing the painful and horrifying memories. Each personality holds a significant aspect of Sybil's being.

The following is a list of personalities (the important ones) that Sybil holds inside of her.


Pictured left to right: Peggy; Vicky; Marcia.

We have Sybil, the original personality, who's a shy but talented art student.

There's Peggy, an emotionally unstable nine-year old who symbolizes Sybil's repressed memories of the past. She always express the need to break glass upon emergence as a way to "get out" (which may be the equivalent of the suppressed memories of abuse leaking out) and constantly rambling about the people (possibly referring to the other personalities).

There's also Vicky, who's an intelligent twelve-year-old French blonde girl who knew about the different personalities. She could be a representation of Sybil's perception of her perfect self. She's the only personality cooperative enough to undergo hypnosis therapy as she's  able to view Sybil's problems from a third person view (which in reality is Sybil's way of coping with her pain as she dissociates herself from her true identity).

We were also introduced to Vanessa, a cheerful 12-year-old redhead who symbolizes Sybil's suppressed musical talent and joy.When she emerges she can play the piano brilliantly, despite Sybil claiming that she had forgotten how to play.

And then there's Marcia, who wishes nothing but death, as she's the personification of Sybil's suicidal tendencies and guilt of her own rage against her abusive mother.

We only seen Ruthie the preverbal infant once, and that's when Sybil regressed into her infant stage due to shock from the revelation that she had multiple personality disorder and also act as a shield against her almost reemerging past memories.

Some personalities, like Mary (an old lady created as the backup version of her beloved deceased grandmother) and both Mike and Sid (both created as boys as Sybil's mutilation of her private parts made her perceive her own female body as undesirable, creating her desire to be the opposite gender) while didn't serve the plot too much, showed the different aspects of not only Sybil's mind, but her past life as well.



Dr. Wilbur worked with all of these personalities, changing her communication style in accordance to the personality. While the vast amount of personalities Sybil had might seemed confusing and almost overwhelming to the audience, Dr. Wilbur accepted all of them without an ounce of prejudice, and treating each and every personality with respect, care and love, showing the audience (and possibly to real world therapists) the kindness and patience required in this line of work.

There are times that when Sybil turned into Peggy, Dr. Wilbur will allow Sybil to sit with her on a big chair and hug her. Even near the ending where Sybil is aware of her different identities, when she expressed the desire to be hugged by Dr. Wilbur, Dr. Wilbur allowed it, and going so far as to express her love to Sybil verbally (in a motherly sense). While this is considered unprofessional boundary crossing behavior in terms of ethics between psychologists and their client (which has a huge gray area as in whether or not the act of crossing is correct or incorrect and should be done or not), Zur's book (2007) regarding boundaries in psychotherapy proposed that nonsexual touch and dual relationships between therapist and client are considered appropriate and is helpful to the recovery process of the client, and therefore could be proceeded without fear of it being unethical, as it is not considered boundary violation (which usually involves sexual misconduct, both consensual or non-consensual).
 


In conclusion, Sybil's journey into recovery and her relationship with Dr. Wilbur amounts to a heartwarming tale of kindness, acceptance, and courage. Sybil in the end faced her identities, and faced her memories. She no longer has to fear or relive the pain of the past, and she also allowed herself to realize that she's allowed to hate her mother for the pain she put her through. She recovered, and she was happy. This film is a wholesome film with a wholesome ending that also gave the audience awareness on the existence of the infamous multiple personality disorder, and the possible causes of it.

I would recommend everyone to go watch it at least once. This is one of the films in all of my reviews that I deem worthy of being re-watched, just to appreciate its beauty in equal parts of horror and heartwarming.

Thank you for reading.



References:

Kluft R.P. (1996) Dissociative Identity Disorder. In: Michelson L.K., Ray W.J. (eds) Handbook of Dissociation, pp. 337-366. Springer, Boston, MA.

Lewis, D. O., Yeager, C. A., Swica, Y., Pincus, J. H., & Lewis, M. (1997). Objective Documentation of Child Abuse and Dissociation in 12 Murderers With Dissociative Identity Disorder. Am J Psychiatry 154:12.

Vermetten, E., Schmahl, C., Lindner, S., Loewenstein, R. J., & Bremner, J. D. (2006). Hippocampal and amygdalar volumes in dissociative identity disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry; 163, 630–636.

Zur, O. (2007). Boundaries in Psychotherapy: Ethical and Clinical Explorations. Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/11563-000