Shirley ardell mason
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It was a case that entranced the entire nation and, arguably, the world during the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Cornelia B. Wilbur, a medical doctor, and psychiatrist, previously on staff at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, presented the case of Sybil Isabel Dorsett to the nation. The case of young Sybil resulted in a book, written by Flora Rheta Schreiber, and a TV movie simply titled Sybil. So who was Sybil? Sybil, born Shirley Ardell Mason, was born in 1923 in Dodge Center, Minnesota. Shirley’s father was Mr. Walter W. Mason and her mother was Mrs. Martha Alice Atkinson. Martha was better known as Mattie but, in Schreiber’s book, she was simply referred to as “Hattie.” For the sake of brevity, Martha will be referred to as “Mattie” through this post. Mattie was often referred to as being strange or weird when she lived in Minnesota. Her neighbors would remark on her bizarre laugh and they (the neighbors) would report that Mattie would walk at night and look into windows. Additionally, it was reported that Mattie had been diagnosed as a
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by Mike Alvarez
When Sybil Isabel Dorsett comes to, she finds herself not in the chemistry building of Columbia University, where she is a graduate student, but caught in the midst of a winter storm in the streets of Philadelphia. Learning that she had “lost” three days this time, she follows the only clue she could find—a key to a room at the Broadwood Hotel in her pocket—to fill in the gaps in her memory. Inside the hotel room that she had supposedly paid for, she finds a pair of pajamas, “loud and gay, with bright orange and green stripes…the sort a child might select.” She wonders if she had slept in them, for the colors are not in her style. But if she hadn’t slept in them, then who did? The answer is Peggy Lou Baldwin, a spunky and itinerant young girl, and one of the sixteen personalities simultaneously inhabiting Sybil’s body.
Flora Rheta Schreiber’s Sybil is the story of a woman with multiple personality disorder, commonly known as dissociative identity disorder, a grave psychological condition in which the self fragments into separate entities, often as a result of
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Shirley Ardell Mason
American art teacher (1923–1998)
For other people with the same name, see Shirley Mason.
Shirley Ardell Mason (January 25, 1923 – February 26, 1998) was an American art teacher[1] who was reported to have dissociative identity disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder). Her life was purportedly described, with adaptations to protect her anonymity, in 1973 in the book Sybil, subtitled The True Story of a Woman Possessed by 16 Separate Personalities. Two films of the same name were made, one released in 1976 and the other in 2007. Both the book and the films used the name Sybil Isabel Dorsett to protect Mason's identity, though the 2007 remake stated Mason's name at its conclusion.
Mason's diagnosis and treatment under Cornelia B. Wilbur have been criticized, with allegations that Wilbur manipulated or misdiagnosed Mason. Mason herself eventually told her doctor that she did not have multiple personalities and that the symptoms had not been genuine,[2] although whether this statement accurately reflected Mas
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