Development of Dissociative Identity Disorder is believed due to traumatic events, experiences and memories which trigger a defense-mechanism, another personality in this case, to protect one self from certain stressful situations (National Alliance on Mental Illness, n.d.). It is an involuntary escape from reality with disconnection of thoughts, memory, consciousness and identity. Sybil was physically, mentally and sexually abused by her mother when she was small. With such growing experiences, she repressed her memories, also restricted her ability to be a better person, such as her hidden music talent and positive traits, but rather being a shy, decent and low self-esteem girl without questioning why. Whenever she feels threaten, the personalities of Peggy will show up and act childishly; when she meets her crush neighbour, the outgoing Vanessa will reveal; when she has no idea what to do in certain situation, the wise and smart Vickie will appear and help; when she remembers something traumatic, the suicidal Marcia will tend to show up and kill herself. There are many other personalities within Sybil, and as she learns about her mental illness and deny, other personalities tend to grow stronger and make Sybil's life more difficult. In order to recover from it, Sybil goes through medication and psychotherapy. It only shows improvement after Sybil recognize her root problem and persists to confront them.
Another interesting yet impact take-away-message from this movie, was the interaction between Dr Wilbur and Sybil. All things that had done by Dr Wilbur brought me to think about the ethics in Psychology and being a therapist. Dr Wilbur shows unconditional love to Sybil and all of her alter identities in order to help Sybil recover from Dissociative Identity Disorder, which demonstrate Carl Roger's Person-Centered therapy (Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2012). Dr Wilbur works hard to balance between ethical dilemmas and the interests of Sybil. For example, Dr Wilbur spoke to her mentor or colleague about Sybil, and being advised that treat those identities "individually". Dr Wilbur learns and realizes not to push too hard to Sybil when she turned into an infant when Dr Wilbur tried to disclose everything to Sybil before Sybil is ready for that. Dr Wilbur even cross the boundaries to stay as friend to Sybil and always standby for her in case of any emergency. Lastly, Dr Wilbur committed and dedicated to stay with Sybil until she recovered. To me, it is a hard decision for a therapist to make such decision and commitment to a patient for so many years.
The film ends well with a hope for people that with proper psychotherapy, medication, social support and positive therapeutic relationship between therapist and client, mental illness can be manageable and even be cured.
References
National Alliance on Mental Illness. (n.d.). Dissociative Disorders. Retrieved from https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Dissociative-Disorders
Sommers-Flanagan, J. & Sommers-Flanagan, R. (2012). Counseling and psychotherapy theories in context and practice: Skills, strategies, and techniques (2nd ed.).
Pictures from Google
https://www.google.com/search?q=sybil+1976&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic9cz92ObLAhVLBo4KHaoNDUMQ_AUIBygC#tbm=isch&q=sybil+and+dr+wilbur&imgrc=zB6GJs_83S9Z6M%3A
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