Herbert Spiegel (June 29, 1914 – December 15, 2009) was an American psychiatrist who popularized therapeutic hypnosis as a mainstream medical treatment for patients suffering from pain, anxiety and addictions. He also gained notoriety for his treatment of the woman known as Sybil, whose case became the subject of a book, 1976 television miniseries and 2007 television movie.

Herbert Spiegel was the father of David Spiegel, M.D., of Stanford University, who likewise is an expert in hypnosis.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, Spiegel attended the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Maryland Medical School. He first learned hypnosis while he was a resident at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.^[1]

During World War II, Spiegel used hypnosis as a treatment for pain control while serving as a battalion surgeon with the First Infantry in North Africa.^[2] With the use of hypnosis, Spiegel was able to reduce the use of morphine in treating soldiers wounded in battle.^[3] He later wrote, "I discovered that it was possible to use persuasion and suggestion to help the men return to previous levels of function" after sustaining severe combat stress.^[1]

Advocate[link]

For many years, Spiegel was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, where he continued his research and study on hypnosis and taught postgraduate courses on the subject.^[4] He was a pioneer in the use of hypnosis as a tool to help patients control pain, stop smoking, eat less, shed phobias and ease anxieties.^[5] Spiegel noted that, until the late 1930s, hypnosis had largely been the domain of "quacks," but gave credit to them for keeping the practice alive: "We are in debt to the quacks for keeping it alive until the medical community started to investigate and find out what a useful tool hypnotism is."^[2]

In 1965, Spiegel's research on hypnosis using closed-circuit television as a means of mass education or group treatment raised concerns that "unscrupulous operators might confuse and exploit viewers at home" through use of hypnosis by television.^[6]

In 1969, Spiegel reported to the American Medical Association's 118th annual meeting on his clinical technique for teaching patients to use "self-hypnosis" that helped one out of five "hard-core" cigarette smokers to give up the habit, and offered some help to many others. Spiegel reported on the theory underlying his "positive" approach to self-hypnosis with an emphasis on respecting and protecting the patient's body:

"To concentrate on not having an itch on your nose is to increase the likelihood of an itch. Likewise, to concentrate on not smoking is to increase your preoccupation with smoking. But, committing yourselves to respect and protect your body distracts attention away from the urge to smoke. It is a way to ignore the urge. When this urge is repeatedly not satisfied by ignoring it, it eventually withers away."^[7]

Spiegel was also a co-director of the Hypnosis Research and Training Foundation in Orlando, Florida, conducting seminars on therapeutic hypnosis for healthcare practitioners. Spiegel and his son, David Siegel, co-authored the medical textbook, "Trance and Treatment."^[3] Spiegel told a reporter in 1977 that he had used hypnosis to help 4,000 patients control obesity, phobias or addiction to cigarettes over the past ten years.^[2]

Spiegel's work in the field of hypnosis has been credited with establishing the practice as a legitimate medical therapy. In 1976, the New York News wrote that Spiegel was "one of the people whose work over the past few decades has helped strip away the aura of charlatanism and make hypnosis a respectable medical tool."^[4]

In 1981, the UPI ran a feature story on Spiegel's advocacy of hypnosis in which Spiegel was quoted as saying:

"The prevalent and wrong attitude in the practice of medicine is use a pill or scalpel or a gadget for problem-solving. Modern medicine puts such extreme emphasis on high technology and drugs that it often overlooks the oldest, and at times the most effective, therapeutic instrument that humans possess — the mind. Medicine resorts to it last instead of first. Hypnosis — which accomplishes alterations in human awareness — is a great way to very directly and quickly get people to alter pain."^[3]

Spiegel became the most noted advocate of therapeutic hypnosis in the United States and developed a status as a celebrity. In its obituary of Spiegel, The New York Times wrote: "Broadway actors sought his help to overcome stage fright, singers to quit smoking, politicians to overcome fear of flying. For years he had a regular table at Elaine's, as well as his own place on the national stage. Dr. Herbert Spiegel's regular table [at Elaine's] was near Woody Allen's at what was a fixture of the New York intellectual and creative scene in the 1960s and '70s."^[1]

"Sybil"[link]

Spiegel also gained notoriety for his role in the treatment of Shirley Ardell Mason, whose case became the subject of the book, "Sybil," the 1976 television miniseries "Sybil starring Sally Field, and the 2007 television movie "Sybil" starring Jessica Lange.^[1] In the 1960s, Spiegel saw Mason for approximately four years after Mason's regular therapist, Dr. Cornelia B. Wilbur, sought Siegel's assistance in sharpening the diagnosis.^[8] According to Siegel, Wilbur had diagnosed Sybil at the time as a schizophrenic.^[8]

Siegel examined Sybil and discovered that she was highly hypnotizable. Siegel used Sybil for a number of studies and as a demonstration case in his classes on hypnosis at Columbia. He developed a rapport with Sybil and became a surrogate therapist when Wilbur was unavailable. During one of his regression studies, Sybil asked Spiegel, "Well, do you want me to be Helen?" According to Spiegel, Sybil told her that "Helen" was "a name Dr. Wilbur gave me for this feeling." Siegel believed that Wilbur "was helping her identify aspects of her life, or perspectives, that she then called by name. By naming them this way, she was reifying a memory of some kind and converting it into a 'personality.'"^[8] Spiegel saw Sybil's "personalities" as game-playing.^[8]

Spiegel recalled that Wilbur later came to him with author Flora Rheta Schreiber and asked him to co-author the book with them. In the course of the discussion, they told him that they would be calling Sybil a "multiple personality." Spiegel recalls telling them, "But she's not a multiple personality!" When Spiegel told Wilbur and Schreiber that it would not be accurate to call Sybil a multiple personality, and that it was not at all consistent with what he knew about her, Siegel recalled that "Schreiber then got in a huff" and said, "But if we don't call it a multiple personality, we don't have a book! The publishers want it to be that, otherwise it won't sell!"^[8] Siegel declined to have any involvement in the book and later made public his view that the popularization of the "Sybil" multiple-personality story was "an embarrassing phase of American psychiatry."^[8]

Wilbur's diagnosis of multiple personality disorder was later challenged by critics who suggested that Wilbur "had encouraged the woman's behavior."^[1]

Writer[link]

Spiegel was the author of several published works. These include:

• "Trance and Treatment: Clinical Uses of Hypnosis," co-authored with his son, David Spiegel, M.D.
• "War stress and neurotic illness," co-authored with Abram Kardiner

Death[link]

Spiegel died in December 2009 at age 95. He died in his sleep in his Manhattan apartment.^[1]

References[link]

This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (February 2009)

David Spiegel, M.D., is Associate Chair of Psychiatry at Stanford University, where he is known for his research into breast cancer.^[1] He directs the Stanford Center on Stress and Health^[2] and is "one of the nation's most respected experts in the clinical uses of hypnosis".^[3]

David Spiegel is the son of the late Herbert Spiegel, M.D., who was likewise an expert in hypnosis.

Selected publications[link]

• Eds. Lake J, Spiegel D. (2006). Complementary And Alternative Treatments in Mental Health Care. American Psychiatric Pub, Inc.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Stanford profile page

This article about an American scientist in academia is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Shirley Ardell Mason
80px Shirley Ardell Mason
Born	(1923-01-25)January 25, 1923
Died	February 26, 1998(1998-02-26) (aged 75)
Nationality	American
Other names	Sybil Isabel Dorsett
Occupation	Commercial artist
Known for	Famous patient with dissociative identity disorder

Shirley Ardell Mason (January 25, 1923 – February 26, 1998) was an American psychiatric patient and commercial artist who was reputed to have multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder. Her life was fictionalized in 1973 in the book Sybil, and two films of the same name were made in 1976 and 2007. Both the book and the films used the name Sybil Isabel Dorsett to protect Mason's identity, though the 2007 remake stated Mason's name at its conclusion.

Biography[link]

Mason was born and raised in Dodge Center, Minnesota, the only child of Walter Mason (a carpenter and architect) and Martha Alice "Mattie" Hageman. In regard to Mason's mother: "...many people in Dodge Center say Mattie" — "Hattie" in the book — "was bizarre," according to Bettie Borst Christensen, who grew up across the street. "She had a witch-like laugh....She didn't laugh much, but when she did, it was like a screech." Christensen remembers Mason's mother walking around after dark, looking in the neighbors' windows. At one point, Mason's mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia.^[1]

In the early 1950s, Mason was a substitute teacher and a student at Columbia University. She had long suffered from blackouts and emotional breakdowns, and finally entered psychotherapy with Cornelia B. Wilbur, a Freudian psychiatrist. Their sessions together are the basis of the book.

Some people in Mason's home town, reading the book, recognized Mason as Sybil. By that time, Mason had severed nearly all ties with her past and was living in West Virginia. She later moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where she lived near Dr. Wilbur. She taught art classes at a community college and ran an art gallery out of her home for many years.^[1][2]

Wilbur diagnosed Mason with breast cancer in 1990 and declined treatment; it later went into remission. The following year Wilbur developed Parkinson's disease and Mason moved into Wilbur's house to take care of her until Wilbur's death in 1992. Mason died of breast cancer on February 26th, 1998.^[1]

[edit] Sybil

Flora Rheta Schreiber's novel Sybil told the true version of Mason's story. The book stated that Mason had multiple personalities as a result of severe sexual abuse at the hands of her mother, whom her psychiatrist Cornelia Wilbur believed had been schizophrenic.^[3] The book was made into a TV-movie, starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward, in 1976. The movie was remade in 2007 with Jessica Lange and Tammy Blanchard as Sybil.

Controversy[link]

Mason's diagnosis has been challenged. Psychiatrist Herbert Spiegel saw Mason for several sessions while Wilbur was on vacation, and felt that Wilbur was manipulating Mason into behaving as though she had multiple personalities when she did not. Spiegel suspected Wilbur of having publicized Mason's case for financial gain. According to Spiegel, Wilbur's client was a hysteric, but did not show signs of multiple personalities; in fact, he later stated that Mason denied to him that she was "multiple", but claimed that Wilbur wanted her to "be" people. Spiegel confronted Wilbur, who responded that the publisher wouldn't publish the book unless it was what she said it was.^[4]

In August 1998, psychologist Robert Rieber of John Jay College of Criminal Justice challenged Mason's diagnosis, claiming she was instead an "extremely suggestible hysteric" and also stated he believed Wilbur had manipulated her in order to secure a book deal.^[5][6] In a review of Rieber's book Bifurcation of the Self, Mark Lawrence asserts that Rieber repeatedly distorted the evidence and left out a number of important facts about Mason's case, in order to advance his case against the validity of the diagnosis.^[7]

Debbie Nathan's Sybil Exposed^[8] draws upon an archive of Schreiber's papers stored at John Jay College of Criminal Justice^[9] and other first-hand sources. Nathan describes the purported manipulation of Wilbur by Mason and vice versa, going into personal detail about the lives of Mason, Wilbur and Schreiber. Nathan ascribes Mason's physical and sensory issues to a lifelong case of pernicious anemia but mistaken at the time for psychogenic symptoms caused by stress. Nathan claims that Wilbur and Mason knowingly perpetrated a fraud. She cites a well-known 1958 letter by Mason (which is actually reprinted in Sybil) in which she claimed to pose as a multiple for attention and excitement. Nathan claims Schreiber wrote Sybil based on stories coaxed from her during therapy, and that this case created an "industry" of repressed memory.^[10] The case remains controversial. Although Wilbur's papers were destroyed, copies and excerpts within the Flora Rheta Schreiber Papers at the Lloyd Sealy Library of John Jay College were unsealed in 1998.^[9]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Multiple Personality Controversies Links to many articles about the real Sybil, Shirley Mason.

Herbert Grönemeyer
Herbert Grönemeyer, 2004
Background information
Birth name	Herbert Arthur Wiglev Clamor Grönemeyer
Born	(1956-04-12) April 12, 1956 (age 56)
Origin	Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany
Genres	Rock, pop rock, soft rock, pop
Occupations	Singer, actor, composer
Instruments	Vocals, piano, guitar
Years active	1978–present
Labels	EMI, Grönland
Website	www.groenemeyer.de

Herbert Grönemeyer (born April 12, 1956) is a German musician and actor, popular in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He starred as war correspondent Lieutenant Werner in Wolfgang Petersen's movie Das Boot, but later concentrated on his musical career. His fifth album 4630 Bochum (1984) and his 20th album Mensch (Human) (2002) are the best-selling German-language records of all time.^{[citation needed]} He is the most successful artist in Germany with album sales of over 13 million albums.^[1]

Early life[link]

Grönemeyer often refers to his personal roots as lying in the German town of Bochum where he spent most of his childhood, youth and early adulthood. Still today, the song Bochum, first released in 1984, is one of his signature songs, especially during live performances. Being born in Göttingen and not in Bochum he has his own explanation: "I was only born in Göttingen because my mother often fainted when she was pregnant with me. She did this every time she turned to her left side, and no one believed her. In Göttingen there was a professor, a specialist, and he didn't believe her either, at which point she lay down, fainted, and brought me into the world. This is why I was born in Göttingen."^[2]

Work[link]

Grönemeyer’s interest in music was sparked at the age of eight, when he started to take piano classes. These later formed the basis for his work as a pianist and composer at the local theatre Schauspielhaus Bochum. In 1979, at the City of Cologne Theatre (Schauspielhaus Köln), using his musical talent to great effect, he gave an excellent performance as Lorenzo in the The Merchant of Venice. Although never having attended an acting school he soon appeared in several TV productions. During one of the shootings he met his later wife, the actress Anna Henkel. Additionally, Grönemeyer published an album he had recorded with the jazz formation "Ocean Orchestra" in 1978, a year in which he also composed the music for the film Uns reicht das nicht by Jürgen Flimm, together with Jens-Peter Ostendorf. His first solo album Grönemeyer, which was published in 1979, was awarded the Golden Lemon for the ugliest album cover of the year. His second album Zwo was released in 1981. Neither managed to chart. In the same year he starred in Wolfgang Petersen’s successful movie Das Boot as Lieutenant Werner. For the role of composer Robert Schumann in the German-German coproduction Frühlingssinfonie (co-starring Nastassja Kinski and Rolf Hoppe), for which he also composed the film score, Grönemeyer spent six months in the GDR. During the early 1980s Grönemeyer put his main focus on his music; the next two albums Total egal (1982) and Gemischte Gefühle (1983) flopped and most concerts of the planned tour had to be cancelled.

Grönemeyer first met success as a musician in 1984 with the release of Bochum which became the best-sold album in Germany that year, particularly supported by the singles "Männer" ( English lyrics ) and "Flugzeuge im Bauch". A year later Grönemeyer appeared in the TV-movie Väter und Söhne, co-starring Julie Christie, Burt Lancaster and Bruno Ganz. In his next albums Sprünge (1986) and Ö (1988) he increasingly expressed his political opinion, criticising the government under German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In 1986 Grönemeyer performed at the Anti-WAAhnsinns Festival against nuclear power and he composed the film score for the TV film Sommer in Lesmona, for which he received the Adolf Grimme Award in gold. The release of his first English album What’s all this was followed by a tour through Canada, where it had success in the charts. After the Berlin Wall had fallen Grönemeyer released the album Luxus in which he addressed the feelings in East and West Germany. Having two children together, Felix and Marie, he married his companion Anna Henkel in 1993. In the same year Chaos was released and became a Top 1 hit record in Germany. More than 600,000 people saw the following tour. In 1994, Grönemeyer was the first non-English-speaking artist who was invited by MTV to do an unplugged concert. Four years later Grönemeyer moved to London and released Bleibt alles anders (Everything Remains Different). He also founded his own record label, Grönland Records. In the same year his brother Wilhelm and his wife Anna died of cancer (both dying within 3 days); it took Grönemeyer a year to resume his work. In 2000 he recorded a concert with a philharmonic orchestra and released the DVD Stand der Dinge (State of Affairs). In August 2002 he released his so far most successful album Mensch (Human) which was awarded Platinum even before release due to advance orders. The single "Mensch" became Grönemeyer’s first number one hit in Germany and 1.5 million people saw the 2-year tour. In 2004 and 2006 Grönemeyer recorded songs for the Olympic Games in Athens ("Everlasting") and the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany ("Celebrate the Day"), respectively.

In March 2007 he released his 12th studio album 12 which was followed by a stadium tour across German-speaking countries. Smaller concerts took place in September in Amsterdam, Munich, Dresden and London's Royal Albert Hall.

The three re-recorded albums What's all this, Luxus and Chaos for the English-speaking market were met with limited sales success. Grönemeyer was scheduled to make his American debut on September 17, 2007 at the Beacon Theater in New York City, but the performance has since been postponed.

In January 2010, Grönemeyer performed the anthem "Komm zur Ruhr" as part of the opening ceremony of the "RUHR.2010" - The city of Essen being the "European Capital of Culture 2010" on behalf of the entire Ruhr area.

The magazine TIME awarded him the title of "European Hero" in 2005 for his humanitarian work.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• 1979 Grönemeyer
• 1980 Zwo
• 1982 Total egal
• 1983 Gemischte Gefühle
• 1984 4630 Bochum
• 1986 Sprünge
• 1988 Ö
• 1990 Luxus
• 1993 Chaos
• 1998 Bleibt alles anders
• 2002 Mensch
• 2007 12
• 2011 Schiffsverkehr

Filmography[link]

• 1976 — Die Geisel (directed by Peter Zadek)
• 1978 — Von Tag zu Tag (directed by Ulrich Stein)
• 1978 — Uns reicht das nicht (directed by Juergen Flimm)
• 1979 — Daheim unter Fremden (directed by Peter Keglevic)
• 1981 — Das Boot (directed by Wolfgang Petersen)
• 1982 — Doktor Faustus (directed by Franz Seitz)
• 1982 — Frühlingssinfonie (directed by Peter Schamoni)
• 1984 — Die ewigen Gefühle (directed by Peter Beauvais)
• 1985 — Väter und Söhne (directed by Bernhard Sinkel)
• 2007 — Control (directed by Anton Corbijn)
• 2010 — The American (directed by Anton Corbijn): film score by Herbert Grönemeyer

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Herbert Grönemeyer

• Official website
• http://www.groenland.com Grönemeyer's record label
• http://www.letzte-version.de Fan site
• Herbert Grönemeyer on Europopmusic.eu (English)
• Herbert Grönemeyer at the Internet Movie Database
• Herbert Grönemeyer discography at Discogs