Hysteria in Four Acts

I 1973, the journalist Flora Rhea Schreiber collaborated with Cornelia Wilbur, a Manhattan psychiatrist, in writing Sybil., the story of a young woman who, while under Wilbur's care, developed sixteen "personalities." In each distinct "alter"— alternative personality—she behaved in a different way, at one time or another "depicting" aggressive males, defenseless children, and intellectual women. In their book, which was an enormous bestseller in both hardcover and paperback and inspired a hugely popular four-hour movie for television, the collaborating authors proposed that the "disintegration" of Sybil's mind into several personalities was the result of her having repressed the memory of sexual abuse she had suffered at the hands of her mother in childhood. Although the abuse itself was never confirmed, the book and the television movie ignited a craze. Schreiber heard from numerous women who credited her with opening their eyes to their own multiple personalities. Other biographies soon appeared. (Only one. The Minds of Billy Milligan [1981], remains in print.) Like Sybil, they all linked multiple-personality dis-