Talk Back

[alyson]

I'm sure people have heard of this book, which is a narrative following the true story of a woman's struggle with her multiple personality disorder. It's another reread for me--I guess I've been in the mood for multiplicity--but this one is much more readable than The 3 Faces of Eve, and a bit less horrifying than When Rabbit Howls.

The writing style is easier because it was not written directly by the psychoanalyst but by a writer and editor with a history in psychiatry. It is written more like a story than a scientific review, and you can feel more empathy for Sybil.

Two things though. 1. It's graphic as hell in some places, and even though those parts are written unemotionally, if you're sensitive to reading about child abuse it will very much bother you.

2. The doctor believes in Freudian techniques, and if the author and the patient didn't have a certain sense of humor about it, I could find it obnoxious. I had to write this quote as an example: "Safely ensconced in this double dependency, Sybil relived the relaxation she had known at her mother's breast before being weaned and being confronted with the manufactured nipple that had supplanted the warm human one." I mean, really.