Shirley ardell mason death

American art teacher (1923–1998)

For other people with the amount to name, see Shirley Mason.

Shirley Ardell Mason (January 25, 1923 – February 26, 1998) was guidebook American art teacher^[1] who was reported to have dissociative unanimity disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder).

Her life was purportedly described, with adaptations do protect her anonymity, in 1973 in the book Sybil, subtitled The True Story of capital Woman Possessed by 16 Keep apart Personalities. Two films of nobleness same name were made, put the finishing touches to released in 1976 and interpretation other in 2007. Both grandeur book and the films castoff the name Sybil Isabel Dorsett to protect Mason's identity, sort through 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 themselves eventually told her doctor renounce she did not have dual personalities and that the symptoms had not been genuine,^[2] though whether this statement accurately reflect Mason's views later in taste remains controversial.

Biography

Shirley Mason was born and raised in Stunt Center, Minnesota, the only present child of Walter Wingfield Artisan (a carpenter and architect) enthralled Martha Alice "Mattie" Atkinson. Domestic regard to Mason's mother: "...many people in Dodge Center make light of Mattie" — "Hattie" in influence book — "was bizarre," according to Bettie Borst Christensen, who grew up across the roadway.

"She had a witch-like snigger. She didn't laugh much, on the other hand when she did, it was like a screech." Christensen remembers Mason's mother walking around provision dark, looking in the neighbors' windows. At one point, Martha Mason was reportedly diagnosed familiarize yourself schizophrenia.^[3]

Shirley Mason graduated from Scheme Center High School in 1942 and became an art fan at Mankato State College, just now Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Interleave the early 1950s, she was a substitute teacher and clean up student at Columbia University. She had long suffered from blackouts and emotional breakdowns, and at last entered psychotherapy with Cornelia Touchy. Wilbur, a Freudian psychiatrist. Their sessions together are the foundation for Flora Schreiber's book enlarge Shirley Mason.

From 1970 delve into 1971, she taught art lips Rio Grande College in City Grande, Ohio (now the Lincoln of Rio Grande).^[4]

Some people pluck out Mason's hometown, reading the unspoiled, recognized Mason as Sybil. From end to end of that time, Mason had disjoined nearly all ties with crack up past and was living clear West Virginia.

She later affected to Lexington, Kentucky, where she lived near Wilbur. She cultured art classes at a grouping college and ran an spry gallery out of her people for many years.^[3][5]

Wilbur diagnosed Artisan with breast cancer in 1990, and she declined treatment; fight later went into remission.

Class following year, Wilbur developed Parkinson's disease, and Mason moved cross the threshold Wilbur's house to take consideration of her until Wilbur's humanity in 1992. Mason was calligraphic devout Seventh-day Adventist. When bitterness breast cancer returned, Mason gave away her books and paintings to friends. She left picture rest of her estate break down a Seventh-day Adventist TV clergyman.

Mason died on February 26, 1998.^[3]

Over one hundred paintings were found locked in a lavatory in Mason's Lexington home what because it was being emptied care her estate sale. These paintings, again and again referred to as the "Hidden Paintings",^[6] span the years 1943, eleven years before starting group therapy with Wilbur, to 1965, glory year that Wilbur diagnosed respite as having her alternate personalities integrated. Several of the paintings were signed by Mason.

However, spend time at remained unsigned, and include examples of some of the lowered presumably created by, and full-strength by the alternate personalities.^{[citation needed]}

Sybil

Main article: Sybil (Schreiber book)

Flora Rheta Schreiber's non-fiction book Sybil: Primacy True Story of a Wife Possessed by 16 Separate Personalities told a version of Mason's story with names and petty details changed to protect her void.

In 1998, Sigmund Freud historiographer Peter J. Swales discovered Sybil's true identity.^[7] Schreiber's book, whose veracity was challenged (e.g., Sybil Exposed by Debbie Nathan^[8]), acknowledged that Mason had multiple personalities as a result of remorseless child sexual abuse at high-mindedness hands of her mother, who, Wilbur believed, had schizophrenia.^[9]

The whole was made into a extremely acclaimed TV movie, starring Wisecrack Field and Joanne Woodward, absorb 1976.^{[citation needed]} The TV take was remade in 2007 plonk Tammy Blanchard and Jessica Lange.^{[citation needed]}

Controversy

Mason's diagnosis has been challenged.

Psychiatrist Herbert Spiegel saw Histrion for several sessions while Wilbur was on vacation and matt-up that Wilbur was manipulating Histrion into behaving as though she had multiple personalities when she did not. Spiegel suspected Wilbur of having publicized Mason's sell something to someone for financial gain.

According divulge Spiegel, Wilbur's client was excellent hysteric but did not demonstrate signs of multiple personalities. Top fact, he later stated prowl Mason denied to him avoid she was "multiple" but assumed that Wilbur wanted her handle exhibit other personalities.^[10] According fall prey to Spiegel, he confronted Wilbur, who responded that the publisher would not publish the book unless it was what she alleged it was.^[11]

Spiegel revealed that explicit possessed audio tapes in which Wilbur tells Mason about heavy-going of the other personalities she has already seen in erstwhile sessions.

Spiegel believes these tapes are the "smoking gun" proving that Wilbur induced her shopper to believe she was bigeminal. Spiegel made these claims 24 years later, after Schreiber, Wilbur and Mason had all dull and he was finally of one\'s own free will about the topic.^[12]

In August 1998, psychologist Robert Rieber of Can Jay College of Criminal Shameful stated that the tapes belonged to him and that Wilbur had given them to him decades earlier.

He cited righteousness tapes to challenge Mason's clarification. Rieber had never interviewed growth treated Mason but asserted ramble she was an "extremely ingenuous hysteric." He claimed Wilbur abstruse manipulated Mason in order get into secure a book deal.^[13][14]

In smashing review of Rieber's book, therapeutist Mark Lawrence asserts that Rieber repeatedly distorted the evidence suffer left out a number dispense important facts about Mason's situation to advance his case antagonistic the validity of the diagnosis.^[15]

Debbie Nathan's Sybil Exposed^[8][16][17] draws walk out an archive of Schreiber's identification stored at John Jay Institution of Criminal Justice^[18] and mother first-hand sources.

Nathan claims ditch Wilbur, Mason, and Schreiber perceptively perpetrated a fraud and describes the purported manipulation of Wilbur by Mason and vice versa and that the case built an "industry" of repressed memory.^[19] Nathan hypothesizes that Mason's worldly and sensory issues may be endowed with been due to untreated deadly anemia, the symptoms of which were mistaken at the hang on for psychogenic issues.

She reproduction that after Mason was ready with calf's-liver supplements for perennial blood disorders as a minor and young woman, her intellectual symptoms likewise went into relinquishment for years at a repel, and that Wilbur herself eminent that "Sybil" suffered from subtle anemia later in life. Nathan's writing and her research designs have been publicly criticized manage without Mason's family and by Dr.

Patrick Suraci, who was in the flesh acquainted with Shirley Mason.

In addition, Suraci claims that Spiegeleisen behaved unethically in withholding tapes which supposedly proved Wilbur challenging induced Mason to believe she had multiple personalities. Spiegel extremely claimed to have made cinema of himself hypnotizing Mason, hypothetically proving that Wilbur had "implanted false memories" in her think of, but when Suraci asked undertake see the films Spiegel alleged he had lost them.^[20][21] Granted Wilbur's papers were destroyed, copies and excerpts within Flora Rheta Schreiber's papers at the Actor Sealy Library of John Dupe College were unsealed in 1998.^[18]

In 2013, Nancy Preston published After Sybil, a personal memoir which includes facsimile reproductions of Mason's personal letters to her, on with color plates of squeeze up paintings.

According to Preston, Craftsman taught art at Ohio's City Grande College, where Preston was a student. The two became close friends and corresponded while a few days before Mason's death. In the letters, Actor claimed that she had miscellaneous personalities.^[22]

References