Sybil (1976)

Haunting. Rage. Anger. Disturbing. Empathy. Horror. Overwhelming. Harrowing. Intense. Terrifying. These are some of the emotions I had during the movie, and after I watched the movie. In my opinion, this movie is much scarier than horror movies, because it involves the disruptions of one’s life because of another person. The damage that has caused her to be that way is much terrifying than demons and spirits. Well, that is just my two cents. Also, like the movie Awakening, Sybil, would be listed in my imaginary list of All-Time-Favourite Movies. Sybil is based on a true story about a woman who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) that is deeply rooted from her childhood abuse.

There are few scenes that are so painful to watch that even a super egotistical person would shed tears. Basically, the retrospection of Sybil when she was 5 years old hits the spot. That innocent and adorable face, and the pureness in her voice caught everyone’s heart I bet. With this then came along her mother, who confused her with real meaning of love. She poisoned her mind. As how Dr.Cornelia Wilbur mentioned in the movie “Love is necessary, but when someone says come here, and then a hand comes a pinch you, that love is spoiled” Honestly, I felt a great deal amount of hatred towards the mother in the movie. Yes, I know it is just a movie, but that is what good movies supposed to make us feel right? We feel what the characters feel. The scenes of little Sybil tripping down the staircase, she getting kicked by her mother, being punished by putting her in the wheat bin, and worst of all the scene in the green kitchen.

Little Sybil 

I believe, everyone should be educated on how child abuse can forever scar their child’s life. It is said that most cases of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is caused by abuse, this movie portrayed really well on the horrific consequences of having really horrible childhood days. The period of someone’s childhood is the most important period in human development, it is when we learn new things, everything seems interesting to us, even a trail of ants on the wall would mesmerize us. We encode new languages, we take in new knowledge, interpret the environment that we live in and we observe and model people’s behaviour. Almost all important events in our lives happen during the childhood moments, and what happens when all these are taken away, or a child was abused during these vital developmental stages? It carries to their next development stages, it will affect them in so many ways, physically, emotionally and psychologically. In the movie, Sybil was severely abused by her mother. Her mother abused her physically, emotionally and mentally. I cannot imagine a 5 year old going through all that, Sybil really wanted to leave the house, she begged the doctor who took out her tonsils to take her away. She reluctantly leaves her grandma when she was being called by her mother. She was deprived of the most crucial aspect of life, a mother’s love. Thus, in her later days, she always asked Dr.Wilbur what is love? She has never experienced that for most of her life, because of her abusive mother, and what do you know, she healed because of the unconditional positive regard that she received from the doctor. There was a scene when Sybil wanted to explain a dream she had of Dr.Wilbur, after describing, the doctor mentioned that she loves Sybil, and the totality of her. Sybil did not hear those words for a very , very long time, and she finally felt loved for the first time.

When Sybil met Dr.Wibur for the first time

In my opinion, I am on the fence of whether DID is real or not real. I mean, as Dr.Goh mentioned, it is very rare to find cases of DID, which means it is real? But, then again, he mentioned that most of these cases are in the USA, where movies like this are being produced, which imply people are just making up the symptoms to seek attention? I do not know, but I would not want that disorder to happen even for my worst enemies. The portrayal of the DID symptoms is the movie was accurate enough to also educate laymen on this disorder, for example, in the beginning of the movie, Sybil was having flashbacks of her horrific incidents, and then all of  sudden she is standing in the water. Then, we saw both Sybil and Dr.Wilbur talking to each other about her tunnel visions, her blackouts, her loss track of time, amnesia, loss of self, and of course her various “self’s”. As always, I like to learn more from watching videos, and I found this short clip on her symptoms, here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kPIDt3yu1M 

As for the therapy, yes, Dr.Wilbur did violate some ethical aspects, such as counter transference, having multiple relationships, and broke confidentiality when she told Richard about her illness.  She was being a ‘mother’ and a therapist towards Sybil, but I think it was necessary for the treatments, because, only then, Sybil would trust her, and hey, if Dr.Wilbur did not inform Richard that she was going to kill herself, he wouldn’t had even know that ‘Marsha’ was going to the roof top for that reason.

Overall, I felt that this movie deserves to be re-screened in this decade. Sally Field who acted as Sybil, “Vanessa”, “Peggy”, “Victoria” and the rest of the personalities did a tremendous job in this movie.  This movie would move you and give you the chills at the same time, and odd combination, but you see for yourself, then you would know.

'Peggy' held traumatic fears of Sybil

'Vicky' who speaks french, is poised and confident