Cornelia B. Wilbur

Cornelia Burwell Wilbur (August 26, 1908 – April 9, 1992) was an American psychiatrist. Her psychiatric treatment of a woman she diagnosed with multiple personalities was the basis for a book, written by Flora Rheta Schreiber, and two television films titled Sybil.

Biography Early life and education Cornelia "Connie" Wilbur was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on August 26, 1908. While she was an infant, her family moved to a ranch in Montana. The family returned to Cleveland in 1918. She was educated in the public schools in Montana and Cleveland.

She attended William Smith College in Geneva, New York, before enrolling at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She received her bachelor's degree and master's degree from the University of Michigan. Wilbur graduated with an M.D. in 1939. an influential study of the development of male homosexuality.

Wilbur joined the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in 1967, earning an appointment as a professor of psychiatry. She ended her career as Professor Emerita at the University of Kentucky Medical College.

Treatment of Shirley Mason and Sybil Wilbur's diagnosis of Mason has been questioned, and both Flora Schreiber and she have been accused of inventing or exaggerating the multiple personality diagnosis and manipulating Mason for professional and financial gain. One examination of the case of "Sybil" is Debbie Nathan's book Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case. Nathan presented evidence that Mason never displayed multiple personalities until she met Wilbur. The patient's symptoms emerged over the years from a mutually reinforced self-deception of both Mason and Wilbur. Nathan's research indicated that Wilbur and Schreiber fabricated aspects of the treatment narrative in Sybil to bolster their claims about Mason, even including Mason's father's claim that Mason's mother had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

People related to Shirley Mason backed up Shirley's diagnosis. Some professionals on dissociative disorders, like Colin A. Ross, have questioned Nathan's thesis that the real diagnosis was not DID, but pernicious anemia, which doesn't cause the symptoms —and doesn't disappear during the nine-year period Shirley wasn't in therapy— that Nathan described. Ross acknowledges, however, that Wilbur's treatment "involved massive boundary violations of numerous types over many years".

Death Wilbur died at her home in April 1992, after having a stroke. In 1991, she had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Appearances Old records of Wilbur appear in the 2021 documentary Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan.