MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE - PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT

Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines

MOVIE REVIEW OF

“SYBIL”

Submitted by: Santos, Poelyne M.

Abnormal Psychology

Submitted to: Ma’am Jacqueline Joy Lising

 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE - PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines

The movie titled “Sybil” is a drama film directed by Joseph Sargent and written by John
Pielmeir. This movie was based on the 1973 book “Sybil” by Flora Rheta Schreiber which tells the story
of a woman named Shirley Mason who was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. The events
in the movie have actually occurred in real life. The main characters in the movie were played by
actress Tammy Blanchard as Sybil Dorsett and Jessica Lange as Dr. Cornelia Wilbur (Sybil’s
Psychiatrist). Tammy Blanchard plays the role of Sybil Dorsett who is a young woman who had an
abusive childhood which became the result of developing a multiple personality disorder or most
commonly known then as “split personality”. This character developed a stunningly 16 different
personalities varying in age and personality traits.

A shy young woman named Sybil Dorsett is a student teacher who is diagnosed with Multiple
personalities. Sybil has 16 separate personalities which occur from time to time when something
triggers it to suddenly come out. Sybil was aware of the blackout that has been happening with her,
and this gave her the reason to visit a psychiatrist. She was referred to psychoanalyst Dr. Cornelia
Wilbur. Sybil complained the blackouts or what she referred to as periods of lost time to Dr. Cornelia
and she explained how she could not remember when it happened and what she did. As meetings of
the two continue, Dr. Cornelia has been having suspicions of Sybil having split personality and these
suspicions were then confirmed after Sybil continues to show shifts in her personality during their
meetings. Sybil has first transformed to Peggy Lu during their first meeting. Peggy Lu is a girl who
helps Sybil gets her rage all out and breaks things made of glass. As the sessions go on, Dr. Wilbur
discovers the different personalities of Sybil like Peggy, exquisite French woman Vickie, scared Peggy
Ann, kind and religious Mary, bright and lively Vanessa, teenagers Tom and Sid, and many others.
Each of these personalities would suddenly come out as Sybil’s reaction to horrible events she had
gone through in her younger years is remembered because her mother suffered with schizophrenia
that made her abuse, humiliate and even raped her own daughter. This is what made Sybil create
multiple personalities in order to cope with all the gruesome things that her mother did to her. The
main personalities of Sybil were Peggy, Vickie, Marcia and Ruthie. The others were Sid, Mike, Clara,
Helen, Marjorie, Sybil Ann, the Blonde, Nancy, and a baby named Ruthie. All of these personalities
were created because of Sybil’s severe trauma that she had when she was a child. For example, Peggy
Ann came out when her mother was torturing her by tying Sybil beside the piano while holding her
urination, but when she can’t hold it anymore, her mother would get mad at her. Dr. Wilbur further
saw that personality when they went inside the church and Sybil starts acting all afraid and urinates all
of a sudden. And the other reason why Sybil likes that is because her father is neglecting the fact that
her daughter is being abuse by his wife and that his wife has schizophrenia. Other personalities of
Sybil like Marcia were created to deal with Sybil’s sin of wanting to kill her mother. It shows in the
movie wherein there are scenes where it shows Sybil saying that links to wanting to kill her mother.
Sybil’s other main personality is Vicky; an elegant and narcissistic woman who sees herself like she’s
from Paris. Vicky is the only personality of Sybil who knows what every personality of Sybil does. At
first, Sybil was in denial of what Dr. Wilbur was saying about her that was the reason of the blackouts
 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE - PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
she's having for the past years of her life. Because of Dr. Wilbur’s urge to get to know more about
Sybil’s father, she thought of asking Sybil to go visit her father together. After their visit to Sybil’s
father, Dr. Wilbur talked to his colleague but she was treated poorly and didn't believe in her and just
thought Sybil was just hysterical because Dr. Wilbur was the only female in the world of psychology.
Being turned down by her colleagues Dr. Wilbur thought of a way to help Sybil with her problem. She
talked to Sybil about trying to hypnotize Sybil in order to talk to the other personalities in order for
them to outgrow and be the same age as Sybil as they are all younger or from Sybil’s past traumas.
When Dr. Wilbur was able to hypnotized Sybil Dorsett, she could now live peacefully and Dr. Wilbur
and Sybil became friends until the end.

Sybil is such a powerful movie. It is about hope and strength; it shows how kindness and
professionalism can cure even the deepest wounds, bringing a shattered suffering soul back together.
It also shows how dangerous prejudice and ignorance can be; how fragile a child’s psyche is, and how
important it is for parents to give their children love, not hatred. You should really pay attention while
watching the movie because once you're not focusing on it you'll miss some of the essentials of the
movie. As a psychology major, after watching the film, it has expanded my knowledge and ideas on
how to deal and manage a patient with multiple personality disorder. I would really recommend the
movie to psychology majors out there in order to learn deeply more about the disorder.