Book Review: Dissociative Disorders: The Bifurcation of the Self: The History and Theory of Dissociation and its Disorders

Abstract

Dissociative Disorders The Bifurcation of the Self: The History and Theory of Dissociation and Its Disorders Robert W Richer. New York (NY): Springer; 2006. 324 p. US$69.95. Reviewer rating: Good Robert W Rieber is a professor of psychology at Fordham University with interests in the history of psychology and psycholinguistics. In this book, he has 3 main objectives. The first is to establish a history and theoretical structure for dissociative disorders, the second is to demolish belief in the case of the famous multiple personality Sybil, and the last is to outline 14 additional seminal cases and their relation to dissociation. Rieber provides a competent introduction, giving an account of the earlier hypnotists, from Mesmer to Janet, and a discussion of their theoretical and philosophical significance. Much of this has been told before, but the sample of information varies somewhat from other texts and remains interesting. Whether it provides a solid foundation for dissociative disorders is questionable. The second part of his book makes it difficult to believe in dissociative disorders at all. It consists of a devastating expose of Sybil, the famous alleged case of multiple personality disorder (MPD) who became the subject of a book and film (and now currently another film). Rieber's aim was, in fact, accomplished in November 1993 by Herbert Spiegel, who told the CBC's Fifth Estate that he had seen the original patient Sybil and concluded that she did not have more than one personality. She was referred to Spiegel by Dr Cornelia Wilbur, the original proponent of Sybil as a case of multiple personality, and she went to see Spiegel for additional hypnotic sessions while Wilbur was away. In the course of these sessions, Sybil asked Spiegel if he wanted her to the personalities she was talking about. Spiegel asked her why she said that and Sybil explained that at different phases of discussion, Wilbur wanted her to express herself as different individuals. Spiegel reassured her that this was unnecessary, and she did not bother with it until she returned to Wilbur. The various personalities only appeared after Wilbur began to use hypnosis, and the book itself clearly establishes the overt iatrogenic etiology of Sybil's multiple personalities. Spiegel told Flora Schreiber, the journalist who wrote up the case from Wilbur's records, that he did not think it was a case of MPD. She said that the book would not sell well unless it was presented as such. Spiegel said that both women were very angry when he did not wish to be associated with a book written in that way. Rieber was friendly with Schreiber, who gave him several tapes made by her and Wilbur, as well as by Sybil and Wilbur. Three of these recordings provide a rather choppy and incomplete appendix to the book, essentially because of transcription difficulties with old tapes. However, buried in them is a statement, apparently made by Wilbur, that the alter personalities only emerged after she started to give Pentothal to the patient. …