SYBIL in her own words: The Untold Story of Shirley Mason, Her Multiple Personalities and Paintings

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SYBIL? Dr. Patrick Suraci discovered the answer to that question in 1993. He learned that Sybil was Shirley Mason and they became friends. Flora Schreiber wrote SYBIL explaining how Shirley developed the 16 personalities as a result of her early childhood abuse. Using psychoanalysis for ten years, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur successfully treated and integrated all the personalities into one whole person, Shirley Mason. Shirley and Dr. Wilbur developed a friendship after therapy was terminated. They both bought houses in Lexington Kentucky. When Dr. Wilbur had a stroke, Shirley, her former patient, became her caregiver, never leaving her side. Despite several traumas in her later life Shirley never had a relapse or a return of her symptoms that are now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Throughout the years Flora kept Dr. Suraci abreast of Shirley’s accomplishments and well-being. This book contains paintings by Sybil and her alternate personalities (alters), Peggy, Marcia, Mary and Vanessa, with their different styles shedding light on the fragmenting and then integration of a whole being. Critics have attempted to disprove the veracity of Sybil’s case. In Dr. Suraci’s book, the reader will discover the ambiguities and false claims made by them. The evidence they misinterpreted is in Schreiber’s archives at the Special Collections Library at John Jay College and open to the public.