Dr. Robert Rieber

Dr. Robert W. Rieber, professor emeritus City University of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, pf New York City and Prospect Point, Maine, passed away peacefully on April 9, 2015. Dr. Rieber gained wide recognition for asserting that “Sybil,” the young woman whose tale of 16 identities helped bring multiple-personality disorder to the attention of the public, actually had just a single troubled personality. He maintained that Sybil’s personalities may have been implanted by her own psychiatrist, eager to break ground in the research of multiple personality disorder. Dr. Rieber authored and edited numerous books, articles, and journals including “Manufacturing Social Distress: Psychopathy in Everyday Life”, “The Psychopathology of Language and Cognition.” Dr. Rieber edited the Encyclopedia of the History of Psychological Theories as well as The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky. Dr. Rieber was a connoisseur of film noir and published “Film, Television, and the Psychology of the Social Dream” with Robert Kelly in 2013/ A graduate of Penn State University, Dr. Rieber earned his doctorate from the University of London. He was on the faculty of Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Psychological Association, and the New York Academy of Sciences. He was editor of the Journal of Social Distress and the Journal of Psycholinguistics. A lover of rare books and treasures of literature, in the course of his travels throughout the world he amassed a distinguished collection, from the field of psychology, anthropology, philosophy and religion. Dr. Rieber is survived by his wife Louise, three children, Dan (Dee) Rieber, Andi (Steven) Irwin, and Sara Rieber, and two granddaughters, Kathryn Rose Rieber and Rose Irwin. He was 83 years old.