1. In the beginning, how aware was Sybil of the other personalities?

Imagine being Sybil as she

becomes more aware. How would you feel? What would you think?

Sybil did not have any knowledge that she had other personalities when she first
experienced a switch. It even took her weeks, months or even years to come to an
understanding that she had such disorder. It is not her fault for not knowing though. When she
experiences a switch, it is like her main self is put to sleep and wakes up clueless of what had
happened, and she just goes and continue on about her day.

If I were Sybil during the time where she was slowly becoming aware, I would feel really
freaked out of myself. I can’t even live with my own thoughts, imagine if I had to worry about all
the other thoughts, I could have with all the personalities that I carry inside my brain. I guess all I
am saying is that I am too weak of a person to cope with such complex disorder.

2. Using what you know about dissociative identity disorder, explain why, Sybil doesn’t
remember how long she has been in Dr. Wilbur’s office.

I honestly do not know much about dissociative identity disorder other than the
learnings that I have gained from the YouTube videos that I have watched before and the movie
“Sybil”. Given what I had just said, my answer/s could be a stretch of truth.

Dissociative identity disorder to me is like a group of on and off switches connected to a

main power source in a house. If I were to define, the house is Sybil in totality and all the other
switches are all the other personalities and her main personality. Now the house rule is: only
one switch is allowed to be turned on and all the other must be turned off because the main
power source could only take such otherwise it could blow out. Having said this, it could be that
Sybil could not remember anything because that main part of her was turned off while the
personality that took over was on.

3. Select three of the following personalities and explain their significance by giving a brief
description. In particular, describe why Sybil developed each personality.
a. Peggy – Peggy is a five year old angry girl. She keeps memory of all the childhood
trauma that Sybil went through. Also, growing up, Sybil thought being angry was evil.
Therefore her Peggy personality expresses that anger for her.
b. Vicki – Vicki is the most stable personality of Sybil. She’s a young French girl and she
keeps Sybil and all the other personalities at bay. She developed this personality
because of Sybil’s adoration for nice things.
c. Vanessa – Vanessa is a young girl that plays the piano really well and handles Sybil’s side
of love. Sybil’s mother always played the piano, and Vanessa was a result of that. She
kept Sybil’s musical ability.

4. Sybil kept making references to things that did not seem to make sense until the end of the
film. Explain the significance of three of the following:
 a. “I can’t see anything, there are dishtowels that were put on by the hands.” – Back
when Sybil was a kid, her mother blindfolded her and tied a dishtowel onto her hands
for the hook to have something to latch on while her mom pulls her up to the top floor.
b. “The hands” Who did they belong to? Why were they just hands and not a part of a
whole person? – The hands belong to her mother. In a session with Dr. Wilbur,
c. “Music goes round and round” – Sybil’s mother loves to sing and play music. She has
repetitively sung the lines along to this.

5. Do you believe Sybil’s mother has some sort of psychological disorder? If so, what might she
have? If not, how do you otherwise explain her behavior?

I strongly believe that Sybil’s mother had serious mental illness. It was mentioned in the
film that the mother had schizophrenia and it was not treated for the reason that the person
was in denial. This denial led to the different kinds of abuse of Sybil as a child.

6. Who does Sybil’s mother have serious issues with in this movie?

It was shown that the mother had serious issues with Sybil. And these issues were
fueled by her own issues such as her schizophrenia. Both do not mix well and so it cost most of
Sybil’s mental disorder when she grew up.

7. Dr. Wilbur treated Sybil by using psychoanalysis. Explain what three parts of psychoanalysis
she used.

Dr. Wilbur used hypnosis, free association and dream interpretation. All of three of
these were used by Dr. Wilbur to understand what Sybil was going through for her to be able to
offer help.
a) Hypnosis – This was used to collect information from Sybil without any
disturbances such as judgement or cloudy vision.
b) Free Association – Dr. Wilbur collects clues and cues from Sybil and the other
personalities’’ actions and words that are out of her own free will. Dr. Wilbur
associates these things to certain matters and problems and this allowed her to
proceed with her dealings with Sybil and open up conversations that would
otherwise end up badly if it weren’t for the information.
c) Dream Interpretation – Sybil and her other personalities would tell Dr. Wilbur
about their dreams and visions. Dr. Wilbur would then have them draw them on
paper and later pieces these things together and interpret them to better
understand what they were trying to portray. This helped Dr. Wilbur discover a
lot about Sybil’s dealings as she was growing up.

8. Each of Sybil’s dissociative identities (personalities) is triggered by a word, phrase, or action.

Select four of the following triggers and explain their significance for Sybil and why it draws
out one of her personalities.
 a. Swing set (crickety noise) – The crickety noise comes from the pulley that was used to
pull her up by her two weak hands to the second floor.
b. The color green – The kitchen’s walls where Sybil was sexually abused by her mother
was color green. It draws her personality because it reminds her of the traumatic hurt
and pain that she went through that time.
c. The color purple – When Sybil drew a purple chicken as a kid, her mom punished her for
being stupid. Later on, her mom locked her inside a crate where she drew the walls with
her purple crayon to let people know that she was in fact there.
d. Dripping of water – The kitchen’s sink was partly broken as it always had water dripping
on the sink. The sound reminds her of her mother and all the abuse that happened
while hearing the leak.

9. What were your overall impressions of this movie? Did it help you understand Dissociative
Identity Disorder? Why/why not?

I fall asleep easily on movies that are not in the same genre as horror or thriller.
However, the movie Sybil actually had me up all night. The movie is three hours long, yes, but it
did not seem like it as I had found it so marvelous. It even became way more interesting when
psychology terms that were introduced in my class were said in the movie with such fluent use.

In all honesty, if I did not watch this movie, I would never even start to believe that
everything about dissociative identity disorder is even true. I mean not that I am closed minded
nor ignorant, but these kinds of disorders are hard to believe. Sybil helped me a whole lot in
understanding the basic ins and outs of the disorder.

Overall, I am glad we were tasked to watch this movie. It is a complete eye opener for
people like me who struggle to gain understanding not unless given proof.

10. Based upon the two video presentations we have seen (the documentary When the Devil
Knocks and the film Sybil) what is your opinion about the controversial diagnosis of
dissociative identity disorder (aka multiple personalities)? Do you think it is a legitimate
disorder or do you think people who claim to have it are faking? Upon what is your opinion
based?

I don’t think we were tasked to watch When the Devil Knocks. However, my opinion on
the controversial diagnosis of dissociative identity disorders is that it is a very complicated process. It
needs a very skillful psychiatrist that has self-control and all the right attributes to deal with these
disorders. I do think that it is legitimate and very serious. It could, however, trick so many people into
thinking it weren’t and an example of this was the scene where Sybil’s personalities banded together in
denial for Dr. Wilbur to let them go. Moreover, I do think that some people fake it on the social media
platform “YouTube”. I guess people nowadays would do anything for views and clout.