Corbett H. Thigpen (January 8, 1919 – March 19, 1999) was an American psychiatrist and co-author of the book ''

The Three Faces of Eve ''The Three Faces of Eve'' is a 1957 American film noir mystery drama film presented in CinemaScope, based on the book of the same name about the life of Chris Costner Sizemore, which was written by psychiatrists Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey ...

'' (1957).

Education and career

Thigpen attended

North Georgia College The University of North Georgia (UNG) is a public senior military college with multiple campuses in Georgia. It is part of the University System of Georgia. The university was established on January 8, 2013 by a merger of North Georgia College ...

(now University of North Georgia) and

Mercer University Mercer University is a private research university with its main campus in Macon, Georgia. Founded in 1833 as Mercer Institute and gaining university status in 1837, it is the oldest private university in the state and enrolls more than 9,000 ...

. He graduated from the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) in Augusta in 1945. Thigpen then entered into the private practice of psychiatry with Dr.

Hervey M. Cleckley Hervey Milton Cleckley (September 7, 1903 – January 28, 1984) was an American psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of psychopathy. His book, ''The Mask of Sanity,'' originally published in 1941 and revised in new editions until the 1980s, ...

. Together, for much of the 1940s and most of the 1950s, they comprised the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at MCG, being then and there the only teachers in those fields, while also maintaining their private practice. Treatments they used included coma therapy,

electroshock therapy Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatric treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage refractory mental disorders.Rudorfer, MV, Henry, ME, Sackeim, HA (2003)"Electroconvulsive th ...

(ECT),

deep sleep therapy Deep sleep therapy (DST), also called prolonged sleep treatment or continuous narcosis, is a discredited form of ostensibly psychiatric treatment in which drugs are used to keep patients unconscious for a period of days or weeks. The controversia ...

and

lobotomy A lobotomy, or leucotomy, is a form of neurosurgical treatment for psychiatric disorder or neurological disorder (e.g. epilepsy) that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex. The surgery causes most of the connections to ...

. Cleckley later wrote in ''

The Mask of Sanity ''The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality'' is a book written by American psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley, first published in 1941, describing Cleckley's clinical interviews with patie ...

'' that "Thigpen, my medical associate of many years, has played a major part in the development and the revision of this work".

Multiple personality

In 1957, with Cleckley, Thigpen co-authored the book ''The Three Faces of Eve'', the first popular account of a case of multiple personalities (now called

dissociative identity disorder Dissociative identity disorder (DID), better known as multiple personality disorder or multiple personality syndrome, is a mental disorder characterized by the presence of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states. The di ...

). They had previously published a research article on their patient "Eve" in 1954, documenting the psychiatric sessions and how they came to view it as a case of multiple personality. Such a diagnosis had fallen into relative disuse in psychiatry, but Thigpen and Cleckley felt they had identified a rare case; others have questioned the use of hypnosis and suggestion in creating some if not all of the characterization, and the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder remains controversial despite, or because of, upsurges in diagnoses in America.OCR Psychology: AS Core Studies and Psychological Investigations
Psychology Press, 2013 The book was made into a film, ''

'', released later in 1957, and starring

Joanne Woodward Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American actress. A star since the Golden Age of Hollywood, Woodward made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a charact ...

, who earned an

Academy Award for Best Actress The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. ...

for her role. Thigpen and Cleckley served as advisors to Director

Nunnally Johnson Nunnally Hunter Johnson (December 5, 1897 – March 25, 1977) was an American screenwriter, film director, producer, and playwright. As a filmmaker, he wrote the screenplays to more than fifty films in a career that spanned from 1927 to 1967. He ...

and received writing credits on the film. At the authors' behest, the film followed the actual patient's life and treatment. In the book and film, Eve is cured of her alternate personalities, but the real life person—

Chris Costner Sizemore Christine "Chris" Costner Sizemore (April 4, 1927 – July 24, 2016) was an American woman who, in the 1950s, was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder. Her case, with a pseudonym used, was dep ...

—has stated that she was not free of them until many years later. She also alleges that she was not aware the session reports would be published outside of medical circles, or that she was signing over rights to her life story forever (for £3 for the book rights to

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...

which sold 2 million copies and $5000 for the visual rights (relatives received $2000)). She fought unsuccessfully to stop the publication of videos of her treatment sessions, but in 1989 successfully sued the film studio

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

when it wanted to make a parody remake of its film and tried to use a 1956 contract she had signed, without legal representation via Thigpen, to prevent

Sissy Spacek Mary Elizabeth Spacek (; born December 25, 1949) is an American actress and singer. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for four Briti ...

optioning Major League Baseball transactions are changes made to the roster of a major league team during or after the season. They may include waiving, releasing, and trading players, as well as assigning players to minor league teams. Active, expanded, a ...

Sizemore's own published book on her life. When Sizemore returned to Augusta for a speaking tour in 1982 neither Thigpen or Cleckley attended and she did not visit them, though in 2008 she described the diagnosis and treatment of her as courageous. In 1994 Thigpen and Cleckley published a brief communication in an international hypnosis journal cautioning against over-use of the diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder.

Politics

During the mid-1960s, Thigpen stated his opposition to the policy direction of the Vietnam War, believing that it was not being fought to win, and vehemently disagreed with increasing the role of government in citizens' lives, particularly in the medical field, a trend he predicted would result in a decrease in the general quality of healthcare. To express these ideas, Thigpen wrote the speech "A Psychiatrist Looks At His Nation" and presented it throughout Georgia and South Carolina. In 1968 he was awarded the Freedom Foundation's George Washington Medal.

Later life and career

Thigpen continued his practice of psychiatry until 1987, when

vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...

forced retirement.

Bibliography

Book: * ranslated into 27 languages Journal Articles: Thigpen, C. H. and Cleckley, H. M., "A Case of Multiple Personality," ''The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology'', 495: 135–151, January, 1954. lso presented at American Psychiatric Association(APA) Convention, May, 1953 Cleckley, H. M. and Thigpen, C. H.: "The Dynamics of Illusion," ''American Journal of Psychiatry'', 112: 334–342, November, 1955. resented at APA Convention, May, 1955 Thigpen, F. B., Thigpen, C. H., and Cleckley, H. M., The Use of Electric-Convulsive Therapy in Morphine, Meperidine and Related Alkaloid Additions, ''The American Journal of Psychiatry'', 109: 895–898, June, 1953. Thigpen, C. H. and Moss, B. F., Jr., "Unusual Paranoid Manifestations in a Case of Psychomotor Epilepsy and Narcolepsy," ''Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease'', 122: 381–385, October, 1955. resented at Georgia Medical Association Meeting, May, 1955 Thigpen, C. H. and Cleckley, H. M., "Freudian Psychodynamics--Science or Mirage?" ''The New Physician'' (Journal of the Student American Medical Association),10: 97–101, April, 1961. Thigpen, C. H., "Renaissance Man," ''Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia'', 20–22, January, 1985. Thigpen, C. H. and Cleckley, H. M.: A Case Study of Multiple Personality, 1954, Pennsylvania State University, Psychological Cinema Registry, University Park, PA. Thigpen C. H. and Cleckley, H. M.: A Modern Properly Administered Electroconvulsive Treatment, 1979. (Presented at the APA Convention, San Francisco, CA, May, 1980.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thigpen, Corbett 1919 births 1999 deaths Medical College of Georgia alumni American psychiatrists Writers from Macon, Georgia 20th-century American physicians University of North Georgia alumni Mercer University alumni