“Sybil Dorsett”became synonomous with multiple personality during the 1970s after the bestselling novel and TV movie about a woman with 16 personalities. Actually based apon the reports of 11 years of psychoanalysis of a woman named Shirley Ardell Mason. Mason was a long-term patient of Dr.Cornelia Wilbur who supplied author Flora Rheta Schreiber with historical and scientific data for the basis of the “Sybil” character
Mason taught Art in New York City and later moved to Kentucky where she taught at University of Kentucky. She continued her relationship with Dr.Wilbur. Living next-door and maintaining daily contact. Mason never married nor had children. She died in 1988 and maintained her (secret) identity as “Sybil” until the end.
No Reference
