Sunday, November 6, 2011
Fraud "proven"...again.
Shirley Ardell Mason was born Jan. 25, 1923. She grew up in a small town in Minnesota. In the early 1950's she was a substitute teacher and a graduate student studying art at Columbia University. She lived in West Virginia for a while, then settled in Lexington, Kentucky where she taught art at the local community college and ran an art gallery out of her home.Shirley never married, never had any children, and she had severed all ties with her family decades before her death. In the late 1980's and early 1990's, Shirley lived with and cared for Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, who died in Lexington in 1992. She died in Lexington Feb. 26. 1998 from breast cancer; she was 75 years old.
Shirley Ardell Mason was "Sybil Isabel Dorsett", made famous by the book, "Sybil" by Flora Rheta Schrieber and the movie of the same name starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward. The name Sybil was used to allow for Shirley to remain anonymous, though it has been reported that when the movie came out, several people from Shirley's home town recognized her and her mother.
Recently a book called "Sybil Exposed" by Debbie Nathan has hit the bookstores. Several people have posted about it on blogs, and there are ongoing discussions in online psych communities (both for those with dissociative disorders, and general psych). In this book Nathan "proves" "Sybil" to be a fake. Nathan asserts that Mason and Dr. Wilbur intentionally colluded to perpetrate fraud in order to make money. Nathan also claims that Dr. Wilbur wanted to see multiple personalities, so Mason created them during therapy in order to keep Dr. Wilbur's attention. In short, Mason manipulated Dr. Wilbur...the claim is also made that Dr. Wilbur planted the idea or actually created the alters while having Mason under sodium pentathol or hypnosis, or both. So which is it? They knowingly created a fraud, or the doctor was manipulated, or the doctor created it...either they both knew, or one of them knew or it was real...it can't be all of the above as suggested in the book!
I have other issues with this, as follows....
- Debbie Nathan is an American journalist. American media is well-known for not giving all the facts and skewing the ones they do give in order to show whatever it is they want to be seen by the lay public. As a journalist, I don't believe Nathan to be qualified to or even ethical in asserting such an opinion. A journalist's job is to report the facts and let others form their own opinions. Nathan is neither a Psychologist nor a Psychiatrist, the only professionals qualified to make a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities); it logically follows that only a Psychologist or Psychiatrist would be qualified to DENY said diagnosis.
- Nathan is a board member of the N*tion*l C*nter for Re*son and J*st*ce (spoiled to foil search engines, I hope). This organization is a non-profit who's express purpose is to help people who are falsely accused of harming children. Nathan was the first to write about the "ritual abuse panic" of the 1980's and her writing helped free some people who were convicted. Seems to me that Nathan has a vested interest here. "Proving" the most famous case of child abuse to be false would certainly do wonders to further her cause.
- This is not the first time "Sybil" has been "proven" to be a fake. During her treatment, Mason saw Dr. Herbert Spiegel while Wilbur was on vacation. Dr. Spiegel claimed Mason showed no signs of multiple personalities. My thinking is "Duh!"...of course she didn't! Mason didn't know this doctor, she had no trust established, and no reason to believe that anything really needed to be established since Wilbur would return from vacation. In 1998, psychologist Robert Rieber challenged Mason's diagnosis claiming that Wilbur manipulated Mason. Neither of these claims of fraud stuck...why should they now?
- A well-known letter that Mason wrote to Wilbur is being used to claim that Mason herself acknowledged being a fake. In the letter, Mason does in fact say the alters are not real, she made them all up, etc. This however, is a very common protective/coping technique (for lack of a better word) that those with multiple personalities use when things get scary. I myself have done this...I didn't write a letter, but deny the existence of the others regardless of the evidence in front of me...oh yes, I did that! As did many other people diagnosed with multiple personalities that I "know" through online forums. This letter was also published in entirety in the book by Schreiber, and this denial is portrayed in a different fashion in the movie. The letter proves nothing.
- My biggest issue is the question "why?". Why does it matter whether or not Mason was real? Why now? Why back in '98? Mason died in early '98, she can't defend herself. Wilbur and Schreiber are both dead. None of the people truly involved in the case are around to say anything about this. Wilbur's records were destroyed, there are "some notes" from Schreiber's archives...how can anything be proven without examining the patient?
~sera
Posted by Battle Weary at 6:53 AM 5 comments