Sybil is a 2007 drama film featuring Tammy Blanchard as the main character, Sybil Dorsett. Housing sixteen personalities, the young woman named Sybil shuffles through personalities throughout the film, a condition known as Dissociative Personality Disorder (DID), or more commonly multiple personality disorder. In the beginning, Sybil is a New York City substitute teacher that experiences great confusion and is easily provoked into aggression. Upon shattering a window with her hand, Sybil experiences a shift in personality which prompts a medical visit. Completely unaware as to how she arrived at a doctor’s office, Sybil is mentally probed by Dr. Wilbur, eventually discovering her dark twisted past as the daughter of a strict fundamentalist …show more content…
The exception to this rule is her more immature alter named Ruthie. Ruthie was emotionally and physically abused by her psychotic mother throughout her life as a child. In some scenes her mother would offer love and then kick Ruthie down the stairs and in others she would sexually assault Ruthie with a button hook to cleanse her of sins. The most traumatic experience and the one that causes the most trouble, functionally, in Sybil’s life is the enema scene. Again, attempting to cleanse Ruthie, her mother inserts an enema filled with ice cold water and forces Ruthie to hold her bladder while her mother plays the piano. Eventually failing to restrain her urine, Ruthie releases the contents of her bladder and is severely scolded by her mother screaming, “You are very, very bad!” (Sybil 2007) After the traumatizing event, anytime a piano is played, Ruthie takes the spotlight and begins to scream that she can not hold it any longer and she is not a bad girl. As she struggles to contain herself, Ruthie inevitably urinates in church causing great embarrassment. Happening multiple times throughout the movie, Sybil’s lack of control over Ruthie lends to a very dysfunctional life, making her a perfect …show more content…
Currently, outpatient therapy programs are superior to medical treatments, hence psychotherapy being a predominant method of curing Sybil by Dr. Wilbur. Psychotherapy involves talking through past or present events to create a more adapted individual and reduce abnormal tendencies. Working her way through Sybil’s past, Dr. Wilbur begins to understand the causes of Sybil’s disorder and continues to bring more past memories and alters to the forefront. Eventually, Dr. Wilbur understands each alter’s functions and how they were created. Dr. WIlbur eventually brings forth each alter in an attempt to unify the personalities. Each alter varies in age, some ranging from a baby all the way up to a grown woman. Working through the stages of youngest to oldest, Dr. WIlbur slowly creates a uniform age in which all alters can coincide. Telling the youngest alter that she needs to grow up to do the things she wants to, the adolescent boy to grow up and be a man, and eventually the adult to become wiser like Sybil. Finally, Sybil’s personalities are unified and she is a bit overwhelmed with the flood of memories she never knew she possessed. Again, following the practices of psychotherapy, Dr. Wilbur tells Sybil to remember the good memories she had with the alter egos instead of the abuse each one suffered under the reign of Sybil’s abusive mother
Susanna’s actions prove that she is continually working towards recovering. Jim Watson visits Susanna, asking her to run away with him, however, Susanna denies his proposal and stays at the institution: “For ten seconds I imagined this other life...the whole thing...was hazy. The vinyl chairs, the security screens, the buzzing of the nursing-station door: Those things were clear. ‘I’m here now, Jim,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve got to stay here’” (Kaysen 27). Susanna wants to stay at McLean until she is ready to leave; her choice supports what Buddha said, “There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting” (Buddha). Susanna finds reassurance from McClean as she undergoes her journey. Susanna sees the young nurses at the ward who remind her of the life she could be living: “They shared apartments and had boyfriends and talked about clothes. We wanted to protect them so that they could go on living these lives. They were our proxies” (Kaysen 91). Susanna chooses to take these reminders as a positive motivating force along her journey. However, Susanna is also surrounded by patients who have different, more severe psychoses. These girls do not hinder Susanna’s progression, but instead emphasize her
Each character, in some capacity, is learning something new about themselves. Whether it be new views, new feelings, newfound confidence, or a new realization of past events, each character involved in the play realizes something view-altering by the end of the play. Bonny is realizing that she is growing up and discovering how to deal with boys, and to lie to her parents; Elsie realizes that she doesn’t need her father for everything, and eventually overcomes her fear of driving on her own; Grace is discovering that she must let her children think for themselves at times, and that she must let Charlie choose what he wants to do; and Charlie, of course, is discovering that there are more ways to think than the status quo that society presents. Each character obviously goes through very different struggles throughout the play, but in the end, they all result in realizing something about themselves they didn’t at the beginning of the
Once schizophrenia becomes severe, Walton develops two seemingly real characters in his imagination. Walton’s mental condition and obsessive longing for someone to connect with leads him to separate himself mentally from his superego and id.
Borderline Personality Disorder in “Girl Interrupted” The movie, “Girl Interrupted,”is about a teenage girl named Susanna Kaysen who has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. People with Borderline Personality Disorder “are often emotionally unstable, impulsive, unpredictable, irritable, and anxious. They are also prone to boredom. Their behavior is similar to that of individuals with schizotypal personality disorder, but they are not as consistently withdrawn and bizarre” (Santrock, 2003).
Living in a mental hospital for almost two years, Susanna Kaysen wonders why she is there and if she belongs there. Without getting any true answers from her doctors, she struggles to accept her disorder and working to get rid of it. The movie, Girl Interrupted is full of psychological principles I’ve learned throughout the year, which play a role in how Susanna grows as a character. Besides the fact that Susanna has a Borderline Personality Disorder, she is a victim of conformity and self-fulfilling prophecies. These principles are what determine if Susanna is sane or not, and if she will be able to come
Prior to the hospital, Deborah only considered the gods and goddesses existing in Yr, to be her friends, as she would turn to them during times of loneliness or rejection. Throughout the time spent in the hospital, Deborah slowly opened up to Dr. Fried, even nicknaming her ‘Furii’, based upon the power her insight held. During her treatment sessions with Dr. Fried, Deborah familiarizes a feeling which she has become immune too over the years, a feeling of love. Due to the empathy displayed by famous psychiatrist Dr. Fried, the feeling of being the sick, crazy girl ultimately distinguishes during their sessions, resulting in a positive impact along Deborah’s road to recovery, "She liked working with patients. Their very illness made them examine their sanity as few 'sane ' people could. Kept from loving, sharing, and simple communication, they often hungered for it with a purity of passion that she saw as beautiful." (Greenberg, 19). When Dr. Royson supply’s for Dr. Fried, it becomes evident that the trust Dr. Fried built within her relationship with Deborah, and her genuine desire to help the protagonist, assisted the uphill battle, as without the compassion and belief Dr. Royson failed to provide, Deborah fell back down the hill. In conclusion, the honest efforts of the
Emily’s psychotic personality disorder is made completely obvious through the details of the story. Before his death Emily’s father refused to allow her to reach sexual maturity by preventing her from loving any man below their class. This caused sexual ...
There are two different kinds of disorders, personality disorders and psychological disorders. Psychological disorders are illnesses that an individual experiences as episodes. Personality disorders are enduring traits that are major components of the individual's personality (Rathus, 2010). No matter what kind of disorder a person may possess their lives are affected everyday by them, it takes over their body and consumes them as a person. Disorders are often misunderstood. You do not have the ability to make a split second decision and then continue life without that disorder, it will take lots of counseling. While we are not trained psychologist everyone can learn or identify disorders in popular movies or television shows. In the movie, Mommie Dearest, directed by Frank Perry, Joan Crawford possesses several of these disorders, including bipolar, borderline personality disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.
Sexual molestation, beating, neglect, burning, and verbal abuse. All of these horrible happenings are believed to be linked to a condition known as Multiple personality disorder (MPD). Multiple personality disorder, also known as dissociative identity disorder, is a mental illness in which a person has two or more identities or personalities. Single personalities randomly take control of the individual's behavior. Usually, the sufferer gives the personalities their own names. These multiple personalities almost always have characteristics that greatly differ from the person's primary identity. A person with this disorder always experiences some amount of amnesia. Most of the time the individual forgets what each personality has done or said.
The growing recognition of psychiatric conditions resulting from traumatic influences is a significant mental health issue of the 1990s. Until recently considered rare and mysterious psychiatric curiosities, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (until very recently known as Multiple Personality Disorder - MPD) and other Dissociative Disorders (DD) are now understood to be fairly common effects of severe trauma in early childhood, most typically extreme, repeated physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse.
Wilber plays the important role in reuniting the sixteen personalities, allow Sybil to have control over her body without long blackouts. Dr. Wilber assistance Sybil in facing the trauma from her childhood. Dr. Wilber speaks to Sybil’s through other selves as these selves acted as gatekeepers the horrifying abuse, taking parts of Sybil life and storing these memories. Dr. Wilber was successful in being able to identify Sybil main alters who held these memories through hypnosis (Schreiber, 1995). “The victim of abuse may only be able to stage a psychologically-based escape.
My topic of choice for this research paper is Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID. This appellation is rather new; therefore, most are more familiar with the disorder's older, less technical name: Multiple Personality Disorder or MPD. When first presented with the task of selecting a topic on which to center this paper, I immediately dismissed Dissociative Identity Disorder (which for the sake of brevity will be referred to as DID for the remainder of this paper) as a viable topic due to the sheer scope of the disorder. However after an exhaustive examination of other prospective topics, I found myself back at my original choice. There are several reasons why I chose DID. The foremost of which is the widespread fascination of this disorder by many different types of people; most of whom otherwise have no interest in psychology or its associated fields. One would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t been captivated at one time or another by the extraordinary, all too well known symptoms of this disorder. This fascination… dare I say ‘allure’ to this disorder is exemplified by the myriad of motion pictures that have been produced based on cases, real or fictitious, of DID. Another reason for my choice is what I feel is the insufficiency of effective treatments for DID. Despite what is known about this disorder, (which is relatively a lot) there are only two chief treatments for DID; the first and most prevalent is psychotherapy; also known as ”talk therapy”, the second is medication. The third and final reason for my choice is my own enchantment with DID. I must admit that ever since I read about Sue Tinker, a woman who was diagnosed with over 200 different personalities. In writing this paper I hope to discover more about this disorder and perhaps be able to identify a few areas that I feel might require more research on the part of psychologists specializing in DID.
For a long time I had an deep interest in schizophrenia, I think that mental illness such as this one of ten miss interpreted in the media. There have been several movies that display schizophrenia in pop culture. One of these movies is one that I very much enjoyed tittle sucker punch.
Sybil was a very important, and one of the most popular, accounts of Dissociative Identity. The book went into great detail about the suffering Sybil went through, and the lengths that her therapist took to try to validate the claim and treat her personalities, through verification with family members to visiting her childhood doctor. (Putnam). This account not only gave therapists a basis to compare their dissociative patients against, but also reopened the public’s eyes to this disorder. (Putnam 35). It was classified in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980, only six years after the books release. (Kihlstrom). Now there is some concern over the validity of this account, which only fuels the controversy more. There are still other studies of Dissociative Identity Disorder, such as The Five of Me (1977), The Three Faces of Eve (1957) and many other true case studies. The Three Faces of Eve was also a book turned into a movie that, so far, has been proven as a valid case. This case study was not as detailed as the case study on Sybil, but still is a true study of this disorder. (“Multiple Personality”)
Just as Narcissus stole Echo’s heart and broke it, Dorian Gray ruins Sybil Vane’s life and leads her to an untimely death. Influenced by Lord Henry Wotton’s advice on not being young forever and pressured by Basil’s perfect painting of him, Dorian Gray quickly begins to look at life through a different lens. He stumbles upon a theater in a London slum and by extension upon a beautiful young actress— Sybil Vane. He courts her and she is smitten with him instantly. Their relationship escalates quickly, so much so that Dorian Gray proposes to Sybil. As they are engaged, Sybil is unable to contain her love for Dorian. Her newfound passion leaves her unable to assume other characters on the stage, and as a result her talent diminishes. Disgusted at a terrible performance from Sybil after their proposal, Dorian berates her. Angrily, he tells her: “You have killed my love,” (Wilde 88). Sybil is heartbroken and all of a sudden her life feels meaningless. She is unable to cope with so before Dorian can reconcile with her, she commits suicide. Dorian is speechless and shocked at first, however Lord Henry convinces him that she was selfish to kill herself. H...