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Emmy Award-winning actress Tammy Blanchard (Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows) essays the role of a young girl whose fragile mind was tragically fractured due to years of abuse by her unstable mother (JoBeth Williams). The setting is the late 1950s: multiple personality disorder has yet to be recognized as a serious condition by the mainstream medical community, and Dr. Cornelia Wilbur (Jessica Lange) is struggling against the sexist attitudes of her chauvinistic male colleagues. Chief among her arrogant detractors is Dr. Atcheson (Ron White), a highly respected medico who seems to view Dr. Wilbur with little but thinly-veiled contempt. When Dr. Wilbur hypnotizes withdrawn abuse victim Sybil (Blanchard) in an attempt to bring the sixteen distinct personalities possessed by the girl into harmony, the shocking truth about her tormented childhood gradually comes into focus while forming the foundation of the case file that will finally see multiple personality disorder recognized as a legitimate medical condition.