Best Answer: St. Augustine (Florida) is the oldest continually occupied European settlement in the continental United States, only San Juan, Puerto Rico predates the city as the oldest settlement within the territory of the United States.
Finally in 1980 the American Psychiatric Association officially recognized multiple personality disorder as a genuine emotional illness. Today, MPD is a relatively popular diagnosis with 20,000 cases recorded between 1980 and 1990. Researchers currently believe that from 0.01-10% of the general population has this mental illness.
Now Debbie Nathan, writing in her new book, Sybil Exposed, suggests that the core diagnosis for Sybil -- of multiple personality disorder -- was made up by the patient to keep in the good graces of her psychiatrist. NPR has the story, and describes how Shirley Mason â Sybilâs real name â came to have multiple personality disorder: Shirley Mason, the real Sybil, grew up in the Midwest in a strict Seventh-day Adventist family. As a young woman she was emotionally unstable, and she decided to seek psychiatric help. Mason became unusually attached to her psychiatrist, Dr. Connie Wilbur, and she knew that Wilbur had a special interest in multiple personality disorder.