I ordered the book and it is on its way to me now, but I wanted to put some info that has already come to me about the book, besides that everything the woman is presupposing is about people who are dead and unable to explain the truth. Good thing everyone isn’t dead regarding Omaha! Whew!
Anyway- here is what I was sent:
Inaccuracies in Nathan’s book, Sybil Exposed
October 19, 2011, Statement from Dr. Patrick Suraci
I went to the Special Collections Library at John Jay College of
Criminal Justice to verify statements made by Debbie Nathan in her book
SYBIL EXPOSED.
1. On pages 99-100 Nathan writes: “Connie would carry her apparatus to
Shirley’s apartment and climb in bed with her. She would clamp the
paddles to Shirley’s temples, twirl the dials, and press the buttons.
Connie’s gadget was an old electro-convulsive machine she had retired
years earlier.”
Nathan cites the evidence for this in her “Notes: Chapter 8, No.38.. FRS
Box 37, Files 1081, Tape 124.” In this document on January 26, 1955,
Shirley writes about “electric shock” along with her other treatments.
There is absolutely no documentation of Nathan’s outrageous claim.
2. On page 71 Nathan writes: “Completely inexperienced with men, she had
little idea of how to take Gene’s (O’Neill) measure. He noticed her
ignorance and didn’t like it. Too`girlish’ he called Flora,
particularly when it came to sex. In a sheaf of notes she wrote to
herself, she described feeling pain at having his finger inside her, let
alone his penis. `Be an animal,’ Gene would urge her, and he blamed
her reticence on the fact that she had a profession. `You bring
Adelphi College into the bedroom. It is not that career women don’t want
to go to bed – it is that they don’t know how,’ he scolded Flora.”
To prove this Nathan cites in: “Notes: Chapter 6, No.11, FRS Box 34,
File 1051” In this document Schreiber writes about Eugene O’Neill: “His
complaint – Be an animal – give – you bring Adelphi College
into the bedroom – we’re close friends in the living room and the
moment we go into the bedroom you become a stranger…he says that it
is not that career women don’t want to go to bed – it is that they
don’t know how. Outcome might have been different if she had gone to bed
with him on the last Saturday after he told her about _____” Schreiber
at no time writes about O’Neill’s “finger” or “penis.”
3. On page 232 Nathan writes: “…She (Shirley Mason) died quietly in
her home, surrounded by nurses, on February 26 of that year. She was
seventy-five years old. It was early evening when she died.”
In my book SYBIL in her own words: The Untold Story of Shirley Mason,
Her Multiple Personalities and Paintings. On page 261 I write:
“The penultimate time I phoned Shirley’s home was on February 26, 1998,
at 12:07 PM. In the background I heard her weak voice pleading to
Roberta ,(Guy) `Tell him I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ Roberta informed me
that Shirley was too sick to speak on the phone. I mumbled, `Please
tell her that it’s okay, it’s okay. I’ll call later.’ …
“When I called later that day at 3:01 PM Roberta stunned me with the
news than Shirley had just died.”
Dr. Suraci has the telephone records of that day, February 26, 1998.
Information about Dr. Suraci:
“SYBIL In Her Own Words: The Untold Story of Shirley Mason, Her
Multiple Personalities and Paintings” by Patrick Suraci, Ph.D.
SYBIL is a new book about Shirley Mason who had 16 personalities. It
tells the story of her life after her cure depicted in the book SYBIL
and TV movie starring Sally Field. This book contains paintings by 5 of
Sybil’s alternate personalities. The author’s interviews with
Shirley Mason report her own words and her new whole personality.
In the book, the author presents evidence refuting Dr. Spiegel’s
claim to have hypnotized Shirley Mason. Dr. Suraci discovered an audio
cassette where Ms. Mason and Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, her therapist,
discuss how it was impossible for Dr. Spiegel to hypnotize Shirley,
because she did not trust or like him.