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Suzanne O'Sullivan

Irish neurologist and author From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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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:

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:

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]

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Personal life

O’Sullivan lives in London.[citation needed]

References

Further reading

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