Sybil

In the late fall of 1959, Dr. Wilbur decides that Sybil’s progress is coming too slowly. Sybil finds she is unable to keep up with her coursework and drops out of school. Searching for ways to speed up the healing that do not rely on pentothal, Dr. Wilbur begins to look into hypnosis.

Though Sybil had strong objections to hypnosis when she first started analysis, she agrees to allow the treatment. Dr. Wilbur uses hypnosis to call up the various selves and try to move them forward in time, believing that integration of the various selves will be easier if they are all the same age.

Dr. Wilbur begins with 2-year-old Ruthie, Sybil’s youngest personality. Dr. Wilbur tells Ruthie that in ten minutes, she will be 3 years old. Wilbur asks if Ruthie would like to be three. Yes, Ruthie says; if she is 3, she can color. Dr. Wilbur tells Ruthie to pick a good day to “be” 3 years old; Ruthie picks a memory of a day she spent with her Aunt Fay. She then “becomes” 3 years old.

Dr. Wilbur repeats the process of aging for each of Sybil’s selves, discovering that many of them fear integration, as they perceive of it as a kind of nonexistence, something akin to death.