Corbett H. Thigpen

Thigpen continued his practice of psychiatry until 1987, when vertigo forced retirement.

Thigpen, C. H., "Renaissance Man," Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, 20–22, January, 1985.

Thigpen C. H. and Cleckley, H. M.: A Modern Properly Administered Electroconvulsive Treatment, 1979. (Presented at the APA Convention, San Francisco, CA, May, 1980.

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.

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.

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). 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.

The book was made into a film, The Three Faces of Eve, released later in 1957, and starring Joanne Woodward, who earned an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role. Thigpen and Cleckley served as advisors to Director Nunnally Johnson and received writing credits on the film. At the authors' behest, the film followed the actual patient's life and treatment.

Cleckley, H. M. and Thigpen, C. H.: "The Dynamics of Illusion," American Journal of Psychiatry, 112: 334–342, November, 1955. [Presented at APA Convention, May, 1955]

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. [Presented at Georgia Medical Association Meeting, May, 1955]

Thigpen, C. H. and Cleckley, H. M., "A Case of Multiple Personality," The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 495: 135–151, January, 1954. [Also presented at American Psychiatric Association(APA) Convention, May, 1953]

Thigpen, C. H. and Cleckley, H. M.: A Case Study of Multiple Personality, 1954, Pennsylvania State University, Psychological Cinema Registry, University Park, PA.

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 attended North Georgia College (now University of North Georgia) and Mercer University. 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. 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 (ECT), deep sleep therapy and lobotomy. Cleckley later wrote in The Mask of Sanity that "Thigpen, my medical associate of many years, has played a major part in the development and the revision of this work".

Corbett H. Thigpen (January 8, 1919 – March 19, 1999) was an American psychiatrist and co-author of the book The Three Faces of Eve (1957).