Sybil Exposed:The Extraordinary Story behind the Famous Multiple-Person ality Case

The compelling true story of the three women - a Manhattan psychiatrist, a glamorous magazine writer, and a troubled young woman - behind the psychology case that shook the world.In the 1950s, Sybil Dorsett, a young woman from a tiny Midwest town, was diagnosed with a new psychiatric condition - multiple personality disorder.- Sybil was believed to have 16 separate personalities living within her: from aspiring carpenter Mike to intensely religious Nancy; from impertinent schoolgirls Peggy Lou and Peggy Ann to depressed grandmother Mary; from whimpering toddler Ruthie to the bookish, highly critical Clara.When Flora Rheta Schreiber wrote about the case in her 1973 book Sybil, it immediately became a bestseller.- Soon the Sybil case was a pop-culture phenomenon, and it grew to near-mythic proportions.- The case became a touchstone for issues surrounding identity and sexuality, influencing the way millions of people saw their bodies, relationships, and psyches.- And it gave rise to a new wave of diagnoses: before Sybil, there had been fewer than 200 known cases of multiple personality disorder in history; afterwards, approximately 40,000 people were diagnosed in just a few years.In this groundbreaking book, journalist Debbie Nathan reveals, for the first time, that the Sybil case was an elaborate fraud - albeit one that the perpetrators may have half-believed.- Nathan follows an enormous trail of papers, records, photos, and tapes to show that what really powered the legend was a trio of women who together spun their story into bestseller gold.- The result is an intensely fascinating portrait of a pop-culture phenomenon and the complex psychological factors that primed the world to receive it.A delicious, hiding-in plain-sight historical saga . . . compulsively readable. - Sheila WellerDebbie Nathans fine, insistent mind will stop at nothing to get to the truth behind Sybil. - Susie Bright