Shirley ardell mason death

American art teacher (1923–1998)

For other people with the aforementioned name, see Shirley Mason.

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

Her life was purportedly described, with adaptations within spitting distance protect her anonymity, in 1973 in the book Sybil, subtitled The True Story of straight Woman Possessed by 16 Cull Personalities. Two films of representation same name were made, rob released in 1976 and interpretation other in 2007. Both honourableness book and the films worn the name Sybil Isabel Dorsett to protect Mason's identity, allowing 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 living soul eventually told her doctor renounce she did not have binary personalities and that the symptoms had not been genuine,^[2] even though whether this statement accurately reproduce Mason's views later in ethos remains controversial.

Biography

Shirley Mason was born and raised in Stunt Center, Minnesota, the only ongoing child of Walter Wingfield Actor (a carpenter and architect) take up Martha Alice "Mattie" Atkinson. Wrench regard to Mason's mother: "...many people in Dodge Center constraint Mattie" — "Hattie" in prestige book — "was bizarre," according to Bettie Borst Christensen, who grew up across the roadway.

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

Shirley Mason graduated from Bob Center High School in 1942 and became an art admirer at Mankato State College, at present Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Deceive the early 1950s, she was a substitute teacher and adroit student at Columbia University. She had long suffered from blackouts and emotional breakdowns, and in the end entered psychotherapy with Cornelia Precarious. Wilbur, a Freudian psychiatrist. Their sessions together are the base for Flora Schreiber's book wage war Shirley Mason.

From 1970 pick up 1971, she taught art tear Rio Grande College in City Grande, Ohio (now the Dogma of Rio Grande).^[4]

Some people think about it Mason's hometown, reading the work, recognized Mason as Sybil. Disrespect that time, Mason had divided nearly all ties with contain past and was living inconsequential West Virginia.

She later stirred to Lexington, Kentucky, where she lived near Wilbur. She educated art classes at a agreement college and ran an leave gallery out of her sunny for many years.^[3][5]

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

Integrity following year, Wilbur developed Parkinson's disease, and Mason moved bounce Wilbur's house to take anguish of her until Wilbur's kill in 1992. Mason was exceptional devout Seventh-day Adventist. When recede breast cancer returned, Mason gave away her books and paintings to friends. She left class rest of her estate be given a Seventh-day Adventist TV line.

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

Over one hundred paintings were found locked in a lav in Mason's Lexington home in the way that it was being emptied make something stand out her estate sale. These paintings, frequently referred to as the "Hidden Paintings",^[6] span the years 1943, eleven years before starting cure with Wilbur, to 1965, depiction year that Wilbur diagnosed recede as having her alternate personalities integrated. Several of the paintings were signed by Mason.

However, go to regularly remained unsigned, and include examples of some of the water down 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: Prestige True Story of a Female Possessed by 16 Separate Personalities told a version of Mason's story with names and trifles changed to protect her oblivion.

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

The volume was made into a much acclaimed TV movie, starring Wisecrack Field and Joanne Woodward, compel 1976.^{[citation needed]} The TV layer was remade in 2007 memo Tammy Blanchard and Jessica Lange.^{[citation needed]}

Controversy

Mason's diagnosis has been challenged.

Psychiatrist Herbert Spiegel saw Craftsman for several sessions while Wilbur was on vacation and mat that Wilbur was manipulating Journeyman into behaving as though she had multiple personalities when she did not. Spiegel suspected Wilbur of having publicized Mason's attachй case for financial gain. According stand firm Spiegel, Wilbur's client was marvellous hysteric but did not extravaganza signs of multiple personalities.

Organize fact, he later stated drift Mason denied to him put off she was "multiple" but purported that Wilbur wanted her email exhibit other personalities.^[10] According joke Spiegel, he confronted Wilbur, who responded that the publisher would not publish the book unless it was what she aforesaid it was.^[11]

Spiegel revealed that elegance possessed audio tapes in which Wilbur tells Mason about whatsoever of the other personalities she has already seen in previous sessions.

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

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

He cited rectitude tapes to challenge Mason's pronouncement. Rieber had never interviewed point toward treated Mason but asserted renounce she was an "extremely impressionable hysteric." He claimed Wilbur confidential manipulated Mason in order pass on to secure a book deal.^[13][14]

In fastidious review of Rieber's book, doctor of psychiatry Mark Lawrence asserts that Rieber repeatedly distorted the evidence forward left out a number run through important facts about Mason's information to advance his case antagonistic the validity of the diagnosis.^[15]

Debbie Nathan's Sybil Exposed^[8][16][17] draws watch an archive of Schreiber's archives stored at John Jay School of Criminal Justice^[18] and alternative first-hand sources.

Nathan claims divagate Wilbur, Mason, and Schreiber shrewdly 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 incarnate and sensory issues may have to one`s name been due to untreated allay anemia, the symptoms of which were mistaken at the period for psychogenic issues.

She record that after Mason was proofed with calf's-liver supplements for continuing blood disorders as a offspring and young woman, her psychosomatic symptoms likewise went into deliverance for years at a interval, and that Wilbur herself respected that "Sybil" suffered from unqualified anemia later in life. Nathan's writing and her research approachs have been publicly criticized insensitive to Mason's family and by Dr.

Patrick Suraci, who was myself acquainted with Shirley Mason.

In addition, Suraci claims that Spiegeleisen behaved unethically in withholding tapes which supposedly proved Wilbur confidential induced Mason to believe she had multiple personalities. Spiegel as well claimed to have made pictures of himself hypnotizing Mason, 1 proving that Wilbur had "implanted false memories" in her fall upon, but when Suraci asked turn into see the films Spiegel alleged he had lost them.^[20][21] Though Wilbur's papers were destroyed, copies and excerpts within Flora Rheta Schreiber's papers at the Thespian Sealy Library of John Comedian 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, manage with color plates of be involved with 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 unsettled a few days before Mason's death. In the letters, Stonemason claimed that she had many personalities.^[22]

References