"Sybil" was Hoax That Became Accepted Science (Sound Familiar?)

Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | October 17, 2011 | Rush Limbaugh

[Kaslin]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Something in the New York Post yesterday, a story by Kyle Smith. You remember the woman who had personality disorder, Sybil? Made a movie out of it? Total hoax. A total fraud. Never happened. Made up by the author and some psychiatrists for fun and profit. And since then there have been 40,000 cases of multiple personality disorder diagnosed. After the story of Sybil was published, multiple personality disorder became an officially recognized diagnosis, 40,000 unfortunate patients being diagnosed. Sybil was a real person, but her case and her story was a 100%, 24-karat hoax. And Kyle Smith wrote about it in the New York Post yesterday.

So here we have a real-life recent case of an agenda-driven hoax becoming scientific consensus and a popularly accepted concept that real decisions were based on. Sound familiar? Sound familiar, folks? Does it not sound exactly like what's happened with global warming?

"'Sybil,' the shocking true story of a woman shattered into 16 distinct personalities that helped her to dig up repressed memories of monstrous childhood sexual abuse, sold nearly 7 million copies when it was published in 1973. A serialized version ran in newspapers around the nation as readers gasped at 'scenes of Sybil’s demented mother defecating on lawns, conducting lesbian orgies and raping her daughter with kitchen utensils. This kind of sex and perversion had never before been published on the "women’s" pages,' writes author Debbie Nathan in a new book. 'Sybil' was adapted into an Emmy-winning 1976 TV miniseries starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward that was viewed by one-fifth of the American public. And it was an utter fraud. In her darkly absurd new account, 'Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case,' Nathan draws on a cache of letters at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice that reveals how three women (all now dead) created what they called 'Sybil Inc.' for fun, fame and profit."

It was all a scam. It was all a scam. "Sybil’s real name was Shirley Mason. She was a jittery girl who grew up quivering in a Minnesota family of Seventh-day Adventists who believed that the world was about to end and that any fiction divorced from God’s truth was a sin. As a little girl, she was so terrified of God’s watchful eye that, when she made up stories, she hid this habit from her parents. She was also made to participate in a health fad of the day, the 'internal bath,' or enema. She developed a germ phobia and at one point examined her hands obsessively.

"As a student in New York City in the 1950s, she met a Park Avenue therapist named Cornelia 'Connie' Wilbur. The two women adored each other even as Connie gradually got Shirley hooked on a series of 'therapeutic' drugs, many of them new and seemingly wondrous, including Seconal, Demerol, Edrisal and Daprisal. (The last two were so addictive that they were soon banned.) Connie also strongly believed in giving patients Pentothal, which invariably got them blabbing, sometimes about fantasies that could not possibly have occurred.

"Still, the drug was widely believed to be a 'truth serum.' One day, Shirley started talking about blackouts in which, she claimed, she became others with various names and personalities -- Peggy Lou, Peggy Ann, Vicky, etc. Fascinated, Connie offered, 'Would you like to earn some money?' She suggested that her patient could be the subject of a book. Connie offered to pay Shirley’s medical-school tuition and living expenses. The personality split was a lie, Shirley confessed in a five-page 1958 letter that sits in the archives at John Jay. She said she was 'none of the things I have pretended to be.'
Shirley continued, 'I do not have any multiple personalities ... I do not even have a "double" ... I am all of them. I have essentially been lying ... as trying to show you I felt I needed help ... Quite thrilling. Got me a lot of attention.'"

Okay, fine and dandy. Big deal. No, it is a big deal because this is exactly how we're being played. How many other hoaxes and frauds, particularly in psychotherapy? What about ADD, attention deficit disorder, restless leg syndrome, all of these things, all of these maladies. I know, even now as you listen to me you're getting mad at me. If you have restless leg, "It's real, Rush!" Attention deficit disorder, parents, just telling you, folks -- (interruption) all women have multiple personality disorder if you want to get down to brass tacks, but not in a clinical sense. You never know what you're gonna get from day to day, but I mean that's the fun of it, that's the stereotypical caricature. These people perpetrated a hoax. Forty thousand women were diagnosed with this thing.

Let me put it this way, it's not hard to find people who want to believe they're screwed up and need help. You know how easy that is? And you know how profitable it is? You know how many people that are easily manipulated, tell 'em that they're screwed up 'cause everybody thinks they're screwed up and everybody wants to be fixed from it. And everybody thinks it's a trip to the shrink away or a drug or what have you. If you look at this again the way it all shook out, after the story of Sybil was published, multiple personality disorder became an officially recognized diagnosis, 40,000 patients were diagnosed with this. It doesn't exist. It turns out the story of Sybil was a 100% hoax. So here we have a real live recent case of an agenda-driven hoax becoming scientific consensus, quote, unquote, and a popularly accepted concept that real decisions were based on, real lives were affected.

I have to tell you, I was not surprised whatsoever. The lack of trust that I have for anything, any institution dominated by liberals is hard to quantify. My level of distrust is so high -- media, science, education, I don't care where you go, those people have corrupted and polluted every institution they run, and we see the results wherever we look in this country. The United States Congress, the White House, you name it, wherever they have dominated for a significant amount of time, you have perverse corruption, lies, outright fraud and hoaxes all for the express purpose of controlling people, all because they want to control everybody.

Now, who do you think is in charge of this stupid Occupy Wall Street thing? The same bunch of fraudsters, the same bunch of liars, the same bunch of hoaxers. Nothing is real. With anywhere dominated by liberals, nothing is real. If there is a liberal political agenda attached to it, it isn't real.

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[thackney]

Legend of “Foody-Sue” ping

[Rudder]

After 40+ years in the shrink business (ret), my observation is that Multiple personality disorder is a very rare condition. I had only three such patients.

[afraidfortherepublic]

I once knew somebody whose entire practice was based on detecting and documenting multiple personality disorder. He was not a psychiatrist, or psychologist. His degree was in social work, but he was allowed to practice s a therapist in WI.

[afraidfortherepublic]

See #4. What about 3 Faces of Eve. That came before Sybil, as I remember. Was Eve a true case, or was that made up too?

[Oztrich Boy]

"She's a witch! Look at her nose"

(Sybil Leek)

[freedomlover]

...”just telling you, folks — (interruption) all women have multiple personality disorder if you want to get down to brass tacks, but not in a clinical sense.”

---

I had to LOL at that one in anticipation of some exploding heads.

[Rudder]

Three Faces of Eve really caught the public's attention before Sybil. Written by Corbett Thigpen and Harvey Cleckley, two psychiatrists, it came out around 1957 as a book, then was made into a movie shortly thereafter.

IMHO Eve is an authentic account of MPD.

[Rudder]

BTW, Sybil was considered by those in the profession to be nothing but show business; I never even read it.

[Bean Counter]

yah....”Sybil” may have been a hoax, but Sally Field is still a bat-shit crazy Progtard for real.....

[relictele]

Shame that Billy Milligan evaded justice for his crimes via that defense.

[ReneeLynn]

I know two family members who suffer from restless leg. And I do mean suffer. C’mon Rush. One hoax and suddenly everything is fake?

[blueunicorn6]

I always knew this was a hoax.....No you didn’t......I thought it was possible......Shut up!.......Who’s got the mustard?

[allmendream]

Psychiatry is not a science.

Brain biology is science.

Almost all advancement in the treatment of mental disorders has come from science and molecular treatments, not psychiatric ‘sit down and talk about it’ treatment.

[TheBigIf]

A even better comparison would be the pseudo-science claim that homosexuality is inborn and natural and that all people are born within some sort of sexual spectrum (multiple sexualities?) whereas the left-wing seem to think that gender is a fluid changing dynamic and that all types of sexual behavior are good as long as they follow the witches rede of ‘Do as Thou Wilt but Harm None’ or as it is rephrased by the left – ‘As long as it is two consenting adults and isn’t harming anyone’.

While I do agree that the left-wing is making the science up in regards to global warming / climate change, they are also making the science up in regards to sexuality but talk show hosts such as Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin seem to want to give them a pass on sexuality issues and ignore the topic.

[allmendream]

Psychiatrist says to his patient “Why do you think you are Napoleon?”

He answers “God told me I was.”

A voice from the other room screams out “No I didn’t!”

[DTA]

>>>>>>>>>Three Faces of Eve really caught the public's attention before Sybil. Written by Corbett Thigpen and Harvey Cleckley, two psychiatrists, it came out around 1957 as a book, then was made into a movie shortly thereafter. IMHO Eve is an authentic account of MPD. <<<<<<

The facts are stranger than fiction.

IMHO, it was pre-emptive attack to cover up experiments conducted by CIA in Montreal 1957-61 , in case they leak out.

The same way the title "Three days of the Condor" was used for a Hollywood movie to cover up existence of "Operation Condor" in case it leaks.

Victims of brainwashing experiments could be written-off as MPD. Elegant.

Not so elegant were barbaric practices that were the highlight of U.S. medicine of the same time - wide spread Electro-convulsive therapy, hysterectomies with no medical justification, psychotropic drugs administered to spouses because husbands complained of their behavior, and so on.

Drugging two generations of children for bogus diagnosis (ADD) will bring significant death toll of suicides.

Hey, but on a bright side, it brought billions of profits to shareholders who did not ask too many questions where their profits are coming from.

[Starstruck]

Three Faces of Eve really caught the public's attention before Sybil. Written by Corbett Thigpen and Harvey Cleckley, two psychiatrists, it came out around 1957 as a book, then was made into a movie shortly thereafter.

Just trying to one up Gollum who came out a few years befor Eve.

[struggle]

“YES, DEAR, I’M DOING IT DEAR. HOW CAN I DO IT IF YOU KEEP YELLING AT ME!” - Basil.

[blueunicorn6]

Part of me laughs at this and another part finds it mildly amusing while another part wants to know the psychiatrist’s name.