I read this book because I read Sybil when I was about 14. Although certain aspects of the book struck me as not being believable, I didn't have, at the time the experience to write the whole thing off as a fraud. Consequently, it has had a considerable influence on me and I sometimes find myself tracing an idea back to something I read in this book. I bought Sybil Exposed as a means of eradicated the lingering influence of this fraud. The Debbie Nathan book did that, answering all of my lingering questions e.g. concerning the difference in EEG readings when patients were alleged to be inhabited by dissociated characters. (Mood shifts will produce the same effect.)

What I did not know about and did not expect was the connection of Sybil to a wave of accusations made under the influence of drugs by patients apparently being egged on by their doctors. Many lives have been ruined due to the false memories "recovered" as a result of the influence that Dr. Wilbur generated with her fraudulent case history. Sybil, now known to be one Shirley A Mason, had written a letter to her doctor admitting that she had been faking the multiple personalities because she (the patient) wanted to please her. The doctor rode rough shod over this and insisted her memories were all true and her diagnosis of multiple personality disorder was correct. The letter was also known to the author of Sybil, but she also ignored it, in addition to making up substantial portions of her book.

Sybil Exposed is an eye opener for anyone unaware of the witch hunt against parents on the basis of "recovered memories" that took place in the quarter of a century that followed the publication of Sybil in 1973.

Here is an excerpt from p.224: "As skepticism about Multiple Personality Disorder spread the False Memory Syndrome Foundation began hearing from another group: women who called themselves retractors. They had been in therapy, developed chilling memories of childhood abuse, then realised the memories were false. This change typically occurred after patients were terminated from therapy because their insurance had run out or when they had developed a modicum of independence from their doctors.

I wonder if, twenty-five years from now, the current campus rape epidemic will be taking its place alongside the New England Witch Trials, McCarthyism and Multiple Personality Disorder.