The Rape of Eve: The True Story Behind The Three Faces of Eve
by Colin A. Ross (2012)
I picked this one up after the SOTT Talk Radio interview with Dr. Ross. The mention of the possible dark side of Hervey Cleckley piqued my interest. Here's the basic story. The real 'Eve' who is the subject of Corbett Thigpen and Hervey Cleckley's famous book on Multiple Personality Disorder, The Three Faces of Eve, is Chris Sizemore. Thigpen was her psychiatrist. He and Cleckley, with whom he worked, bought the rights to her life story for $3 in order to write a 'medical monograph,' i.e., a stuffy book probably only to be read by other professionals. But it didn't turn out that way. The book went on to sell millions of copies, and Sizemore didn't receive a penny of royalties from the sales. Not only that, Thigpen was guilty of gross medical misconduct. He sexually assaulted Mrs. Sizemore, declared her 'cured' when she wasn't, caused her to have an abortion and a hysterectomy without her consent (or that of her family), and generally kept her under his control until his death in 1999. He kept her isolated from outside contacts, thus ensuring no one would find out that she wasn't cured and that he had defrauded her.
Ross points out that Thigpen and Cleckley knew nothing about MPD, and by declaring her 'cured' actually prevented her from getting any real help for 20+ years. Both were anti-psychotherapy (of any kind). Thigpen reinforced her MPD, rather than working towards any type of real integration of the personality fragments. Rather, he thought it necessary to 'kill' the personalities he didn't personally like. But when the personalities 'died,' the un-integrated parts were still there, and popped up as new alters for another 20 years after Thigpen's supposed 'cure,' at which time Sizemore got some real therapy from a different doctor and achieved a lasting integration and real cure.
Thigpen really comes across as a nasty piece of work (reading his letters to Chris reminded me a lot of VB). He and Cleckley were hardcore 'biological psychiatrists,' seeing all types of mental illness as purely physiological, to be treated with electroshock therapy, insulin coma therapy, lobotomies, and/or drugs of various sorts. Thigpen himself boasted of performing some 200 lobotomies in one day at a prison, using a sterilized ice pick. He hadn't even published any papers on the method. Both he and Cleckley had killed patients. Thigpen killed a woman in 1972 with ECT and drugs. Cleckley had killed several patients using insulin coma 'therapy' (which he described in a 1941 paper). Cleckley was a co-author on a paper with H.D. Kruse, a physician on the board of the Millibank Fund, who funded the Tuskeegee syphilis study.
There isn't a whole lot on Cleckley in the book. He's mostly in the background, while Thigpen was the main player exploiting Sizemore. But even then, the fact that he went along with it is pretty damning. Ross wonders if either were involved in MKULTRA. There isn't any solid proof to suggest it, but they definitely had connections with people who were (e.g., they got Charles Osgood, who worked on MKULTRA subproject 95, to analyze some of Chris's tests). He leaves the question open for other researchers.
Since Sizemore has told her own story elsewhere (e.g. in her books The Final Face of Eve and I'm Eve), Ross doesn't focus too much on her story, keeping the book centered on Thigpen's manipulation tactics and sleazy behavior. But there are enough tidbits about her life and about MPD to keep it interesting from that angle. (I'm now interested to read more of his work on the subject.)
Searching around, I found a clip from the 'documentary' film Thigpen made of Sizemore. Ross includes a full transcript of the film, with his commentary. If you watch it, you can get a glimpse at Thigpen's sleaziness. (Ross quotes several letters in full where Thigpen not only tells Sizemore that the role of a woman is to do whatever her husband tells her to, but that she needs to lose a few pounds.)
_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ3fl18XQ0A
by Colin A. Ross (2012)
I picked this one up after the SOTT Talk Radio interview with Dr. Ross. The mention of the possible dark side of Hervey Cleckley piqued my interest. Here's the basic story. The real 'Eve' who is the subject of Corbett Thigpen and Hervey Cleckley's famous book on Multiple Personality Disorder, The Three Faces of Eve, is Chris Sizemore. Thigpen was her psychiatrist. He and Cleckley, with whom he worked, bought the rights to her life story for $3 in order to write a 'medical monograph,' i.e., a stuffy book probably only to be read by other professionals. But it didn't turn out that way. The book went on to sell millions of copies, and Sizemore didn't receive a penny of royalties from the sales. Not only that, Thigpen was guilty of gross medical misconduct. He sexually assaulted Mrs. Sizemore, declared her 'cured' when she wasn't, caused her to have an abortion and a hysterectomy without her consent (or that of her family), and generally kept her under his control until his death in 1999. He kept her isolated from outside contacts, thus ensuring no one would find out that she wasn't cured and that he had defrauded her.
Ross points out that Thigpen and Cleckley knew nothing about MPD, and by declaring her 'cured' actually prevented her from getting any real help for 20+ years. Both were anti-psychotherapy (of any kind). Thigpen reinforced her MPD, rather than working towards any type of real integration of the personality fragments. Rather, he thought it necessary to 'kill' the personalities he didn't personally like. But when the personalities 'died,' the un-integrated parts were still there, and popped up as new alters for another 20 years after Thigpen's supposed 'cure,' at which time Sizemore got some real therapy from a different doctor and achieved a lasting integration and real cure.
Thigpen really comes across as a nasty piece of work (reading his letters to Chris reminded me a lot of VB). He and Cleckley were hardcore 'biological psychiatrists,' seeing all types of mental illness as purely physiological, to be treated with electroshock therapy, insulin coma therapy, lobotomies, and/or drugs of various sorts. Thigpen himself boasted of performing some 200 lobotomies in one day at a prison, using a sterilized ice pick. He hadn't even published any papers on the method. Both he and Cleckley had killed patients. Thigpen killed a woman in 1972 with ECT and drugs. Cleckley had killed several patients using insulin coma 'therapy' (which he described in a 1941 paper). Cleckley was a co-author on a paper with H.D. Kruse, a physician on the board of the Millibank Fund, who funded the Tuskeegee syphilis study.
There isn't a whole lot on Cleckley in the book. He's mostly in the background, while Thigpen was the main player exploiting Sizemore. But even then, the fact that he went along with it is pretty damning. Ross wonders if either were involved in MKULTRA. There isn't any solid proof to suggest it, but they definitely had connections with people who were (e.g., they got Charles Osgood, who worked on MKULTRA subproject 95, to analyze some of Chris's tests). He leaves the question open for other researchers.
Since Sizemore has told her own story elsewhere (e.g. in her books The Final Face of Eve and I'm Eve), Ross doesn't focus too much on her story, keeping the book centered on Thigpen's manipulation tactics and sleazy behavior. But there are enough tidbits about her life and about MPD to keep it interesting from that angle. (I'm now interested to read more of his work on the subject.)
Searching around, I found a clip from the 'documentary' film Thigpen made of Sizemore. Ross includes a full transcript of the film, with his commentary. If you watch it, you can get a glimpse at Thigpen's sleaziness. (Ross quotes several letters in full where Thigpen not only tells Sizemore that the role of a woman is to do whatever her husband tells her to, but that she needs to lose a few pounds.)
_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ3fl18XQ0A
