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Suzanne O'Sullivan

The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness Hardcover – April 1, 2021

by Suzanne O'Sullivan (Author)

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'In my view the best science writer around – a true descendant of Oliver Sacks.' – Sathnam Sanghera, author of The Boy with the Topknot

In Sweden, refugee children fall asleep for months and years at a time. In upstate New York, high school students develop contagious seizures. In the US Embassy in Cuba, employees complain of headaches and memory loss after hearing strange noises in the night.

These disparate cases are some of the most remarkable diagnostic mysteries of the twenty-first century, as both doctors and scientists have struggled to explain them within the boundaries of medical science and – more crucially – to treat them. What unites them is that they are all examples of a particular type of psychosomatic illness: medical disorders that are influenced as much by the idiosyncratic aspects of individual cultures as they are by human biology.

Inspired by a poignant encounter with the sleeping refugee children of Sweden, Wellcome Prize-winning neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan travels the world to visit other communities who have also been subject to outbreaks of so-called ‘mystery’ illnesses.

From a derelict post-Soviet mining town in Kazakhstan, to the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua via an oil town in Texas, to the heart of the Maria Mountains in Colombia, O’Sullivan hears remarkable stories from a fascinating array of people, and attempts to unravel their complex meaning while asking the question: who gets to define what is and what isn’t an illness?

Reminiscent of the work of Oliver Sacks, Stephen Grosz and Henry Marsh, The Sleeping Beauties is a moving and unforgettable scientific investigation with a very human face.

Language

English
Publisher

Picador
Publication date

April 1, 2021
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

5.71 x 1.5 x 8.78 inches
ISBN-10

1529010551
ISBN-13

978-1529010558
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador; Main Market edition (April 1, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1529010551
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529010558
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.71 x 1.5 x 8.78 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,130,936 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,614 in Medical Neuropsychology
- #2,646 in Popular Neuropsychology
- #4,134 in Medical Professional Biographies

Customer Reviews:
445 ratings

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4.4 out of 5

445 global ratings

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Recommend reading her first book and then this. Fascinating progression of insights.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 22, 2021

Verified Purchase

The first book leaves you wishing for more acceptance of the diagnosis of psychosomatic illnesses. The second book reveals it’s more complicated than that.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Elizabeth Stewart

Really Liked It!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 9, 2022

** Thanks so much to NetGalley, Suzanne O'Sullivan, and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for this ARC **

The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan was a fascinating look at psychosomatic/functional disorders through the lens of a physician who treats them. I especially enjoyed the reflection on the role of diagnosis in creating a self-fulfilling process and the ways in which functional disorders form in reinforcing feedback loops. The process reminded me very much of Panic Disorder, in which a person notices a physical experience, identifies it as a precursor of panic, tries to eliminate this physical experience, and in doing so re-ups their anxiety until they are panicking. As a therapist, I think a lot about the role of diagnosis in both pathologizing normal experiences and allowing for access to care. The medicalization of mental health has required formal diagnosis of illness for a person to access services, and I wonder frequently about whether or not the giving of a diagnosis to a person on the more ambiguous side of diagnostic criteria results in harm for our clients. I have been thinking about this a lot with the addition of Prolonged Grief Disorder to the DSM. As a grief counselor, I am grateful that this opens up services to more people, while also being concerned about the effect that this has on our understanding of what is often normal bereavement.

Overall, this was a fascinating book that really made me think. My main complaint was that the level of knowledge that O'Sullivan was able to have about the cases discussed varied significantly, through no fault of her own. This just meant that some chapters were interesting stories about her own lived experience having met with people with functional disorders, while others were her postulating on cases she did not have first-hand experience with. As a result, some chapters were more or less interesting.

4 stars - I really liked it

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Allyson M. W. Dyar

Functional Disorders

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 26, 2021

Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan is an Irish neurologist who has travelled the world to explore cases of functional neurological disorder, also called mass hysteria. She details her findings in her book The Sleeping Beauties. These cases range from children in Sweden displaying mass resignation syndrome, where children of immigrants of uncertain status are comatose despite normal EEG studies, to the well-documented case of Le Roy NY.

I remember reading about the case of the girls of Le Roy New York, who were overcome with a twitching disorder. I remember the conclusion was mass hysteria and, as with other stories that make the headlines, the girls and their story were quickly forgotten.

Of current interest is Dr. O'Sullivan’s contention that the Havana Syndrome (still on-going as of this book review) could be considered a functional neurological disorder, however, “the U.S. intelligence services have not reached a consensus on or a formal determination of the cause of the Havana syndrome.” It will be interesting to see what, if any, final conclusions are drawn after careful study.

I believe that anthropologists would find this book of interest, as some of the functional neurological disorders are firmly rooted in native culture, such as the Miskito People or indigenous people of the Mosquito Coast in Nicaragua, some of whom have a condition called Grisi Siknis.

As for the book itself, while the subject itself is quite interesting, I think most casual readers would consider this a bit of a slog.

However, if the subject interests you, then this is a book you should most definitely read.

[Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the advanced ebook copy in exchange for my honest and objective opinion which I have given here.]

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Rachelette

Interesting topic, but a slog to get through

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 18, 2022

I love neurology books, and thought this one would be very interesting because the topic is inherently interesting. I learned a lot of history and politics, read lots of irrelevant details about the color of people's hair, clothes, decor, and food, but this was lacking on the science big time. Her writing style is confusing. It's not like an Oliver Sack's book at all. It was such a slog I've put it back on the shelf with a couple chapters left. Maybe I'll finish it someday.

Helpful

Terence M. Hines

Not totally worthless...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 10, 2022

But pretty close to it. Granted O'Sullivan writes well about an interesting topic. But there are no references, no bibliography, no end notes - no nothing. In other words, none of the important aspects of any scholarly book. Now, I realize that this wasn't intended to be a ponderous scholarly tome. But it is inexcusable for neither the author nor the publisher to have provided at least a minimum about of bibliographic information. Without it, there is no way for the reader to check the statements of the author or to find more reading on specific topics of interest. It is a deeply flawed book.

Helpful

Bailey Hummel

More Advocacy than I was Expecting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 21, 2021

It's rare that I would gravitate towards a nonfiction work that focuses on illness, as I don't generally find this subgenre of nonfiction interesting. Maybe it has something to do with being raised in a healthcare family....

Anywho, the idea of this book - examining strange occurrences of inexplicable disease - sounded interesting to me, And it was, overall.

O'Sullivan has a very clear writing style and I didn't feel like I needed to be a doctor just to get through the text. She also did a good job making you care about the sufferers of these diseases, which likely helped me connect with the subject matter.

One thing that I didn't love was the semi-lobbyist nature of the text. O'Sullivan seems intent on helping the public to accept that functional illness is valid, and to advocate for those who suffer from it. This is a noble cause, don't get me wrong, but that not insignificant aspect of the book wasn't included in the descriptive material, which I found odd.

9 people found this helpful

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QED

Off to a very poor start

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

I only got to page 2 and the author appeared to be significantly over-egging the pudding by claiming that up to a third of neurology clinic referrals are likely to be for psychosomatic symptoms/complaints. Yes, the Scottish Neurological Symptoms Study found that around a third of referrals to neurology were for wholly or partially unexplained symptoms, but it would be a huge leap, and in my opinion an extremely arrogant one, to conclude that these must therefore be psychosomatic in nature. That would be to assume that bioscience knows all there is to know and that doctors do too, and that they always get things right. No creditable scientist would assume that anything unexplained by biomedicine must therefore be of the mind/psyche. Rather they would imagine that there is a vast expanse of biological unknowns waiting to be explored and discovered. And the author, a consultant neurologist, should know that, for at least the last 5 years, it’s been stressed that ‘functional neurological disorders’ (or ‘FND’ - see pages 4 and 5) should be positively identified from symptoms and should NOT be diagnosed on the basis of doctors being unable to find a satisfactory explanation for those symptoms. If she’s been keeping up with this field of neurology then she should also know that the prevalence of true FND is only about 6% of referrals to neurology, so considerably less than she was suggesting, and that even that 6% can’t be definitely attributed to psychosomatic causes.
With such a bad start I’m loath to waste my time reading any more.

27 people found this helpful

Alice in Wonderland

Brilliant and timely book!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 12, 2021

Verified Purchase

Speaking as a primary care practitioner, this book is beautifully written with enough clinical detail yet easily accessible to the "lay" person. Fascinating information illustrates the fact that a person's illness and symptoms are highly influenced by their own social and cultural environment .... not all symptoms can be explained pathologically... which is why many of those suffering from chronic and functional disorders find no solace in the conventional approach of "evidence based medicine". This book invites us all to include consider how we "label" an illness, and what other approaches may be helpful for the individual patient. Highly recommend!

14 people found this helpful

georgia webster

Arrived damaged

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 1, 2021

Verified Purchase

Parcel arrived open and book was damaged with a strip of cardboard glued to it damaging the dust jacket

12 people found this helpful

Margaret Smith

A new understanding

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 20, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book was something of a revelation to me and made me examine the whole western concept of illness. The author examines the mind \body\ societal links with illness. She pays particular attention to psychosomatic or functional disorders. She highlights the way in which they can be linked to the psychosocial environment and the role this plays in the creation of various psychosomatic illnesses. Her explanation avoids blaming the individual but sees it instead as a response from the body to distress which sometimes results in an over sensitivity to perfectly normal bodily sensations. This leads to an endless loop of growing awareness and growing symptoms. Absolutely fascinating and I highly recommend it.

3 people found this helpful

Dr. J. Wood

Clear writing. Frustrating conclusions

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 13, 2021

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed the stories of modern functional syndromes. She tells a good tale. But I’m so frustrated by the poor outcomes which is none of her fault and needs another book. As a doctor who is fascinated by these disorders ( and who was reported to the GMC for daring to diagnose one) I want to set up so many trials!

3 people found this helpful

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