Topic > The portrayal of multiple personality disorder in Sybil

Sybil is a film made in 1976, based on a true story, about a girl living with multiple personality disorder. Sybil has sixteen different personalities that each emerge at different points throughout the film depending on what she is going through. For example, when Sybil is angry, Peggy Lou comes out and expresses anger that Sybil herself cannot. When the different personalities are shown, Sybil thinks she is having blackouts because she can't remember anything for certain periods of time. He will return to the paintings he started to finish or an entire cooked meal and not remember doing these things. One of Sybil's professors notices that she sometimes acts strangely and sends her to a psychiatrist, Dr. Wilber. Dr. Wilber diagnoses Sybil with multiple personality disorder following the extreme abuse she suffered from her mother as a child. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay This movie is very good at showing how physical and psychological abuse can affect people for life. In Sybil, she uses each of her personalities to deal with emotions that she isn't able to deal with every day. Sybil herself has erased all memories of her mother abusing her as a child and denies that her mother would ever do such a thing. It's his other personalities who remember everything and have to deal with the trauma. Sybil shows the daily struggle of someone dealing with a psychological disorder and how it can completely alter a person's life. He can't even maintain a normal relationship because his disorder has taken over his life. Multiple personality disorder occurs when there is more than one personality within a person and is also a dissociative disorder. Dissociative disorders are defined as disruptions to a person's memory, consciousness, or identity. In Sybil's case, there are breaks in all three. Sybil is the "host" personality, and her sixteen other alternate personalities have different experiences, traits, and memories than hers. In the movie Sybil, her personality appears to change under feelings of stress or anxiety. This is common in dissociative disorders because the host tries to block those feelings that bring back memories of the trauma and project them elsewhere. A clash between two of Sybil's personalities is what drives her to give Dr. Wilber a chance. Sybil's father always taught her not to trust doctors because they would only try to hypnotize you and give you drugs. Once Dr. Wilber starts talking to Sybil, she realizes that it is difficult to get information from Sybil, but some of her other personalities are not. Dr. Wilber concludes that stress is what causes these changes in personality when Sybil tells her that she fainted when her grandmother died, which is a huge stress, and she woke up two years older. Dr. Wilber eventually brings Sybil to his home, hypnotizing her and all of her personalities finally unite. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay While watching Sybil, I found the representation of the psychological concept to be very accurate. Although multiple personality disorder is not a common disorder that people encounter every day, it is still a serious disorder that can cause mental, physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. This film is an excellent example of how childhood trauma can stay with a person for a lifetime. At the end of the film, Dr. Wilber meets with Sybil's childhood pediatrician and she confirms the clear evidence of the abuse that Sybil exhibited at the hands of her mother and that her.