Living Multi Personality Disorder

Works Cited

1. M. Keenan, "The Devil and Dr. Braun," New City article, 1995-JUN-22: Mentioned in FMS Foundation Newsletter, at: http://www.fmsfonline.org/fmsf99.n24.html

2. The International Society for the Study of Dissociation has a web site at: http://www.issd.org/ Its official publication is the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. See: http://www.issd.org/indexpage/jtdauthorsinfo.html There are allegations that the ISSD controls the content of the The Journal of Psychiatry & Law (JPSLA). These are not to be mistaken for the The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law or International Journal of Law and Psychiatry."

3. Psychology, Myers in Modules, Sixth Edition, David G. Myers. Hope College Holland, Michigan. (2001)

Living with Multi Personality Disorder

After watching the movie “Sybil” a couple of times, I was able to grasp a better understanding of what a person who suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder goes through. In my Abnormal Psychology class we touched basis on what Multiple Personality Disorder is and what signs to look for, but “Sybil” gave me a vivid idea of how someone lives on a day to day basis with this disorder. This movie also allowed me to see how a clinical psychologist performs an initial assessment which is also part of my abnormal psychology class. This movie “Sybil” made it very clear that Sybil suffered from MPD.

Multiple Personality Disorder also called Disassociative Identity disorder can be defined as a rare disassociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and altering personalities. (Myers, 564) Sybil was in her mid twenties when the problems from her disorder begin to take a huge toll on her. She was emotionally, physically and sexually abused by her mother during her childhood. Somehow Sybil pushed away all of those memories of her childhood into another place. This back fired on her because she later developed MPD. Luckily, Sybil came across a doctor who noticed little things when some routine tests were performed. She then decided to perform an assessment. An assessment in Psychological terms can be defined as the collecting of relevant information in an effort to reach a conclusion and also to determine how and why a person is behaving abnormally and how that person may be helped. (Myers, ch.04)

The Doctor in this movie would recognize things about Sybil that would change and she noticed Sybil was referring to herself in the third person. Sybil would also introduce herself as someone else many times during the same session. Sybil shared her mind with about seven different people. The doctor started to carry on continual sessions with her regularly and many times Sybil would claim to be someone else.

To help better understand and treat Sybil the doctor would slowly question Sybil’s personalities. She found she had better luck talking with Sybil’s personalities than Sybil herself. This would help the Doctor get to the root of Sybil’s problems and reasons behind this disorder. Sometimes Sybil would be a very nice sweet innocent young girl or as different as a young well behaved French lady. The differences in these personalities are endless. Each personality responded differently to the doctor’s treatment. She used Hypnosis which seemed to be the most successful out of all of her treatments. Hypnosis allowed Sybil to not be afraid of her past and to overcome her fears. This would in turn help her let go of many of the personalities she hid behind to keep the “bad” memories away.

When speaking as Gina the young lady from Paris Sybil would seem very confident and fearless. Gina would say things that she didn’t care to much for in regards to Sybil. The Doctor noted this and would try to confront Sybil about specific things Gina would mention. For example how Gina was happy to go out with the boys and Sybil would get too scared. Sybil was scared that her moods would shift and that she