Sybil

“Sybil” is a movie that talks about dissociative identity disorder (DID). Different from other similar movies that exaggerate the horrible effects lead by certain extreme personality, “Sybil” portrays the real conditions of a patient who suffers with dissociative identity disorder. It educates people about the pains and sufferings experienced by a DID’s patient in real life and also the treatments that they go through in order to sustain their lives with many personalities. Besides the patient, it also shows the procedures of the therapist in conducting the psychotherapy towards DID’s patient. 

Sybil, who is the main character in the movie, is being diagnosed with dissociative personality disorder by her psychiatrist, Dr Wilbur. In the beginning, Sybil has no idea that she is suffering with DID, although she has lots of memory gaps in a day and often wakes up in doing something she does not know. Her life is in a mess as she could not manage her relationship, job and financial issues. These terrify her, which leads her seeking help from Dr Wilbur. There are 14 personalities that share Sybil body, including her primary personality. Each personality shows dissimilarities with her primary personality and handles different roles. There is a dominant personality, Vickie, who knows everything about all personalities; a frightened little girl, Peggy, who symbolizes Sybil’s anger and rage towards the abuses caused by her mother during childhood; a music-talented and passionate young girl, Vanessa, who helps Sybil in building a love relationship; a depressed personality, Marcia, who always wants for suicidal; an infant, Ruthie, where Sybil will regress into when she feels frightened; and other more personalities that do not show clearly in the movie. Each personality emerges with a reason and symbolises something that Sybil supresses for long time without she knowing. Therefore, she is not aware of these personalities and the trauma that she experienced during childhood until she is being revealed by Dr Wilbur. The cause of this disorder can be explained by the childhood trauma caused by her mother when she was young. Being abused and neglected by her mother who is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Sybil first suffers with post-traumatic stress disorder, which later develops dissociative personality disorder. The causation reveals in this movie suites the suggested cause of having DID, which is childhood trauma and the symptoms showed also match with the symptoms proposed in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In other words, “Sybil” manages to portray the real conditions and suffers experienced by a patient of DID in normal life, without exaggerating some personalities in order to catch the audiences’ attention. 

Besides displaying the life of a patient with DID, this movie also portrays the life of a therapist in helping her client to deal with the disorder. Dr Wilbur, who is the psychiatrist of Sybil, helps Sybil a lot in order to cope with her disorder. She talks with different personalities and understand the underlying meaning of the existence of each personality. She uses hypnosis to find out the trauma that Sybil went through when she was young. She even handles the personality who has suicidal ideation and immediately rushes towards Sybil when she receives calls that she is going to commit suicide. In order to help Sybil to unite all her personalities together, she reveals to Sybil that she has DID, and leads her to accept the existence of all her personalities and face with her childhood trauma that she has forgotten. Although she has somehow broken the ethical rules of being a therapist, which is not forming the relationship beyond therapist-client relationship, all she did manages to help Sybil to face with her disorder. From her sacrifices and strong wishes to help her client, I realize that it is uneasy to be a therapist, especially when facing with patients who have severe mental disorders and conducting long-term psychotherapy which may last for years. Lots of patience and tolerance are required, together with lots of related knowledge and years of experience. These therefore enlighten me to be prepared and learn to be tolerance before I serve people as a therapist in future. 

In summary, “Sybil” is a nice movie to be watched as it reveals the life of people who suffered with DID. It educates people not to be bias and have discrimination towards these people as they are just normal people who also need love and attention from others. Some of them might not be aware of their disorder and suffered with lots of pains and fears. If this case, family and friends should provide support and help when they needed the most, but not abandoning them and leaving them alone because of fear. Social support would definitely help them to cope better and face their disorder bravely and confidently.