Suzanne O'Sullivan

Suzanne O'Sullivan is an Irish physician practising in Britain, specialising in neurology^[1] and clinical neurophysiology.^{[not verified in body]} In addition to academic publications in her field, O'Sullivan is an author of award-winning non-fiction books,^[2][3] each focusing on medical casework related to her neurology specialty (cases that have been disguised/anonymised).^[4][5]

Early life and education

O'Sullivan is from Dublin,^{[citation needed]} and studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin.^{[citation needed]} She qualified as a doctor in 1991.^[1]

O'Sullivan completed an M.A. in creative writing at Birkbeck College, University of London, in 2015.^{[citation needed]}

Career

O'Sullivan is a neurologist,^[1] clinical neurophysiologist,^{[citation needed]} and writer (see following). As of 2015, she was a consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London.^[1][4] The main focuses of her work in neurology are in the treatment of epilepsy patients, and on improving medical care for people with psychosomatic disorders.^{[citation needed]}

Included in her scholarly publications is work on Functional Neurological Disorder (FND).^[6]

As of 2025, O'Sullivan had authored four non-fiction books, concerned with psychosomatic illness, epilepsy, and over-medicalisation in particular.^{[citation needed]}

Awards and recognition

O'Sullivan's 2016 book, It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness, was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards—a bookshop-curated, reader-selected award—for the year of its publication,^[7] and in that year it won the £30,000 Wellcome Book Prize,^[8][2] and the Royal Society of Biology's General Book Prize, for "for an accessible, engaging and informative life sciences book written for a non-specialist audience", as well.^[3] An early work unrelated to her professional writing, the travel piece, "Going Off the Grid on Indonesia’s Forgotten Islands" (published in The Telegraph^[9]) won the Travel Writer of the Year Award, for longer form writing, from a trade group in 2018.^[10][11]

Her book, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness, was shortlisted for the 2021 Royal Society Science Book Prize.^[12][13][14] The book also featured repeatedly in recommendations of the Next Big Idea Club throughout 2021 and 2022,^[15][16][17] and the organisation interviewed O'Sullivan regarding the book in its magazine in that period as well.^[18]

Popular works

Overview

The following are the four first hardcover English editions of O'Sullivan's books:^{[verification needed]}

• O'Sullivan, Suzanne (5 October 2015). It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness. London, England: Chatto & Windus—Vintage—Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-0701189266. For the publication date, see this link.
• —,— (29 May 2018). Brainstorm: The Detective Stories from the World of Neurology. London, England: Chatto & Windus—Vintage—Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-1784741310.
• —,— (1 April 2021). The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness. London, England: Picador-Pan MacMillan. ISBN 978-1529010558. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021.
• —,— (18 March 2025). The Age of Diagnosis: Sickness, Health and Why Medicine Has Gone Too Far. London, England: Thesis-Penguin Random House. ISBN 9780593852910.

It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness (2015)

This, Sullivan's first book, was published by Chatto & Windus in 2015,^[19] to positive reviews.^[1][4] It has been recognised by multiple nominations and awards.^[2][3][7]

It's All in Your Head discusses issues surrounding psychosomatic illness, with particular attention given to its neurological manifestations.^{[citation needed]} Specifically, it explores the mind-body connection through stories of O’Sullivan's patients, looking compassionately at serious medical problems that arise through psychological mechanisms.^{[citation needed]} As well, O'Sullivan considers the history of the hysteria from ancient to modern times, discusses diagnosis, causes, mechanisms and treatment of neurological psychosomatic disorders in the modern era.^{[citation needed]} Among the characters it presents are:

• Pauline, a woman experiencing since her mid-teens multiple unexplained and progressive medical issues, with symptoms including seizures and paralysis;^{[citation needed]}
• Matthew, a man convinced he has multiple sclerosis, who struggles to accept alternate explanations for his leg paralysis;^{[citation needed]} and
• Camilla, a lawyer, who experiences seizures, and cannot face their cause.^{[citation needed]}

Brainstorm: The Detective Stories from the World of Neurology (2018)

This, O'Sullivan's second book,

Brainstorm published in 2018 by Chatto & Windus.^[20]is an account of how the study of epilepsy changed scientists’ understanding of the human brain.^{[citation needed]} It explores modern views and treatments for epilepsy, and looks at what each teaches about how the brain functions.^{[citation needed]} Among the characters Brainstorm presents are:

• Donal, who hallucinates cartoon dwarves;^{[citation needed]}
• Maya, who faces possible radical surgery to address her epilepsy;^{[citation needed]}
• Sharon, who experiences seizures who cause was other than diagnosed;^{[citation needed]}

The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness (2021)

This, O'Sullivan's third book, was published in April 2021 by Picador in England,^[21] and by Pantheon in the United States,^{[citation needed]} and was lauded by The Royal Society and other organisations.^[13][14][15]

Brandy Schillace, editor-in-chief of the journal Medical Humanities at the time her review, writes in The Wall Street Journal that O'Sullivan "uncovers... complex mechanisms while painting a picture of psychosomatic suffering that removes its associated stigma, and she asks us to think about illness in new ways." She concludes,

The Sleeping Beauties offers a brilliant, nuanced and thoughtful look at the lived experience of illness while asking important questions about the relationship between body and mind. Dr. O’Sullivan’s rich prose weaves a tapestry as hauntingly beautiful as it is scientifically valid.^[22]

In this book, O’Sullivan travels to visit communities globally that are said to be affected by mass hysteria and culture bound syndromes—ways that specific cultures express distress, troubled thoughts, etc.^{[citation needed]} Among the characters Brainstorm presents are:

• schoolgirls in Colombia presenting with seizures, as an apparent contagious outbreak;^{[citation needed]}
• Kazakhstani townspeople presenting with apparent sleeping sickness, again apparently contagious;^{[citation needed]}
• the victims of sonic weapon attacks;^{[clarification needed][where?][citation needed]}
• indigenous Nicaraguans presenting with 'crazy sickness';^{[citation needed]} and
• a New York high school presenting with a Tourette's-like syndrome that is spreading.^{[citation needed]}

The Age of Diagnosis Sickness, Health and Why Medicine Has Gone Too Far (2025)

This, O'Sullivan's fourth book, was published in March 2025 by Thesis-Penguin Random House in England,^[23] to positive early reviews.^{[5][citation needed]}

Personal life

O’Sullivan lives in London.^{[citation needed]}