Sybil was not a fraud. Imagine if someone took a few facts about your life and wrapped an entirely false narrative around them making you out to be something that you never were, and destroying your reputation. Everyone should be concerned about this kind of activity. Every one of us should stand up against it.
Nathan’s work and her PR campaign are an attack not only upon the 3 dead woman she targets who cannot defend themselves, but upon all survivors of extreme abuse.
From a concerned clinician:
I collected a range of sites to show what a major push this propaganda is getting:
New Scientist?!
From Rush to NPR, now that’s coverage. Meanwhile, complete blackout on that fact that Tokyo is more radioactive than the Chernobyl evacuation area (http://enenews.com/)
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/10/was-sybil-a-psychiatrists-creation.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049789/Sybil-Best-selling-child-abuse-split-personality-author-exposed-FAKE.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/magazine/a-girl-not-named-sybil.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=sybil&st=cse&scp=1&adxnnlx=1319040193-l5jQUewHImByWkY/tR4aVw
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/20/141514464/real-sybil-admits-multiple-personalities-were-fake
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/oct/19/sybil-exposed/
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/16/sybil_exposed_memory_lies_and_therapy/singleton/
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/10/17/sybil_was_hoax_that_became_accepted_science_sound_familiar
Wanda Karriker’s review from Amazon books:
According to the product description of SYBIL EXPOSED, “Nathan gives proof that the allegedly true story was largely fabricated.”Although Nathan did a good job of constructing a narrative of how and why she believes the book SYBIL came to be, neither the patient (Shirley Mason aka Sybil, the psychiatrist (Wilbur), nor the author (Schriebner) are alive to defend against Nathan’s interpretations of their interactions and their motivations to produce the book.
On p. 396 (Kindle), Nathan states that Wilbur “used her medical credentials to aggressively promote a diagnosis [multiple personality disorder] that, ultimately, hurt women far more than it helped them . . .”
As a journalist Nathan has a right to use her research findings to impugn the motives of Dr. Wilbur; however, she offered no research to support her contention that the diagnosis “hurt women far more than it helped them.”
Wanda Karriker, Ph.D. Morning, Come Quickly
DID or Multiple Personality Disorder is one of the most political diagnoses ever experienced by those so afflicted. That is, the winds of opinion seem to be governed by a party line that is expected to be towed. The fact is many psychiatrists/psychologists have hostile attitudes toward patients making claim to suffering from it–and largely because they feel pressure from peers. We live in a world of “Me Too” and many are standing up and telling their story. The halls of medicine are unfortunately more often aligned with power and its sympathies toward the abusers who are in high places and are excused by society for their abuse because of their wealth and power. So the sufferer of Multiple personalities, PTSD, violence, or ruin is simply another typically woman hung out to dry…..people are speaking out? Get rid of the diagnoses get rid of the problem. Shirley was a saint BTW