The Sleeping Beauties
Books | Psychology / Cognitive Neuroscience & Cognitive Neuropsychology
3.7
Suzanne O'Sullivan
In Sweden, hundreds of refugee children fall into a state that resembles sleep for months or years at a time. In Le Roy, a town in upstate New York, teenage girls develop involuntary twitches and seizures that spread like a contagion. In the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, employees experience headaches and memory loss after hearing strange noises during the night. These are only a few of the many suspected culture-bound psychosomatic syndromes—specific sets of symptoms that exist in a particular culture or environment—that affect people throughout the world. In The Sleeping Beauties, Dr. Suzanne O’Sullivan—an award-winning Irish neurologist—investigates psychosomatic disorders, traveling the world to visit communities suffering from these so-called mystery illnesses. From a derelict post-Soviet mining town in Kazakhstan to the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua to the heart of the María Mountains in Colombia, O’Sullivan records the remarkable stories of syndromes related to her by people from all walks of life. Riveting and often distressing, these case studies are recounted with compassion and humanity. In examining the complexity of psychogenic illness, O’Sullivan has written a book of both fascination and serious concern as these syndromes continue to proliferate around the globe.
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More Details:
Author
Suzanne O'Sullivan
Pages
336
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published Date
2021-09-21
ISBN
1524748382 9781524748388
Community ReviewsSee all
"OK, this was not at all what I thought it was going to be, but I liked it.<br/><br/>Based on the description, I was expecting a kind of dramatic look at all the mysterious illnesses that have ever existed — the laughing plague, the sleeping beauties, etc. And we did get those, and a few more. But the stories were so personal and authentic. <br/><br/>Then the book takes a turn. After spending all this time thoughtfully hearing people out about how what they're experiencing is real and not imagined, the book explores that the things those people experienced might have been psychosomatic, or mentally contagious. Which does not mean that they're not real! And that's what was so eye-opening about the book: in a world where people fight all over the internet about what illnesses are real and imagined, O'Sullivan takes the position that they can be all in your head, but still entirely real, physically and mentally. I thought that was so unique and so necessary. I did think that the two-ish chapters dedicated to this went on for a long time. I personally would have organized this book differently. But I really enjoyed everything this book had to offer. Especially the chapter on Havanna Syndrome, ahh!!<br/><br/>Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review!"
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kelsey