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A Psychoanalytic Study of Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber on the Light of Freudian theories

Introduction

Sybil, a book about a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder published in 1973. It was known previously as cases of "split personality" that had haunted the imagination of the Belle Epoque. We knew the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, without knowing if it corresponded to real problems or if they were pure fiction. We also knew the case of "hysterical" by Jean Martin Charcot, the women in the throes of dramatic crises, sudden change in personality and tone of voice, which began to speak strange languages, shouting insanities, crying, laughing, then woke up without remembering anything. It showed an obvious analogy with the stories of demonic possession. Then the "big hysteria" had disappeared from the scene, psychiatrists rarely evoking only instances of "dissociation of personality." With Sybil, a new event appeared extraordinary (Schreiber, 1973).

During psychotherapy sessions conducted with the psychoanalyst Cornelia Wilbur, Sybil was transformed: sixteen characters, with names and memories very different, regularly arose during the hypnosis sessions. Some of these characters telling of childhood memories were about abuse and sexual abuse. This exceptional case attracted the attention of the journalist Flora Rheta Schreiber, who decided to make the story. Thus the book Sybil was a bestseller, followed in 1976 with a film. But the case soon became a success unexpected Sybil. Other similar cases then appeared everywhere in America. Some readers recognized themselves in Sybil. The dissociative identity disorder or multiple personality disorder is a dissociative disorder in which perception, memory and experience of identity are affected. It is considered the most severe form of dissociation. The patients are many different personalities alternately take control of their behavior. On the actions of the other people cannot or the offender may only dimly remember, or they experienced as the actions of another person. Related disorders are depression, anxiety, psychosomatic complaints body, self-injury, eating disorders, addictions and relationship problems. The cause is a post-traumatic stress disorder to be, particularly as a result of child abuse. According to studies, the incidence is 0.5-1% of the population. In the professional world, however, debatable whether this is a genuine fault or an iatrogenic (physician generated from) or is a cultural phenomenon.

Discussion

The duality of "me" has been exploited by many literary fictions, such Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Stevenson (1886), The Double Dostoyevsky (1846), Confession of a sinner justified by James Hogg contemporary and friend of Stevenson, Don Juan and the twin of Otto Rank (1914). These stories have entrenched the idea of duality in Western consciousness. Carl Gustav Jung, too, described the human personality as divided into two archetypes, the "persona" or the social mask, and the "shadow", part dark and diabolical, that each of us carries within himself. Freud, meanwhile, shared the human psyche in three instances historically and structurally different, the id, ego and superego (Horevitz & Braun, p. 69-83). The Freudian concepts unconscious and ...