3.5 stars

Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan is an Irish neurologist who wrote the prize-winning book 'It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness.' This book follows in the same vein, discussing illnesses that seem to have no somatic cause.

*****
The placebo effect occurs when a sick person receives a 'fake treatment' (like a sugar pill) and feels better anyway. It seems the mind can convince the body a fake treatment is the real thing.

The opposite is true as well. A person can exhibit ailments caused by their mind. Symptoms might include paralysis, blindness, headache, dizziness, coma, tremor, skin rashes, breathlessness, chest pain, palpitations, bladder problems, diarrhea, stomach cramps, or any other symptoms or disability one can imagine. This type of illness has been given many names over the years, including hysteria, conversion disorder, psychosomatic disorder, and functional neurological disorder (FND).

O'Sullivan observes that many people wrongly consider psychosomatic symptoms 'less real' than other medical problems She writes, "I struggle to see where this underestimation comes from....That the body is the mouthpiece of the mind seems self-evident to me, but I have the sense that not everybody feels the connection between bodily changes and the contents of their thoughts. So when a child becomes catatonic in the context of stresses....people are amazed and perplexed."

O'Sullivan became interested in childhood catatonia when she read a 2017 article about a 9-year-old girl in Sweden called Sophie. Sophie can't move, communicate, eat, or even open her eyes.....though medical tests show nothing wrong. Moreover, Sophie isn't unique. Other young girls in Sweden have fallen into similar catatonic states, suffering from a condition called 'resignation syndrome.'

The common factor among the resignation syndrome victims seems to be the fact that their families are asylum seekers. Sophie's family escaped persecution in Russia, and other catatonic girls belong to ethnic minorities like the Yazidi or the Uyghurs, who are oppressed in their home countries. If asylum isn't granted, the families will be deported.

Asylum seeking is a years-long process, and the families can feel like they're on trial....like they're being interrogated rather than listened to. O'Sullivan writes, "The asylum system seeks to find the mistakes that disprove an applicant's case, rather than looking for the evidence to prove it." O'Sullivan believes the children faced with possible deportation are under strain, and this induces the symptoms of resignation syndrome. Moreover, when granted residency the children usually wake up, albeit very very slowly.

Unfortunately many people look at psychosomatic symptoms as being 'fake' and untreatable. A physician called Dr. Olssen took O'Sullivan to visit two Yazidi sisters in Sweden - Nola (10) and Helan (11) - both of whom suffer from resignation syndrome. O'Sullivan writes, "Dr. Olssen welcomed me because I was a neurologist. She hoped that I could find a [brain-related] explanation....that I would interpret the clinical signs and legitimize the girls' suffering and convince someone to help them. That Nola had been lying in bed for a year and a half without eating or moving had not been deemed impressive enough to get her the help she needed."

Oddly enough, though asylum seekers are found all over the world, resignation syndrome seems confined to Sweden, and affects only certain ethnic groups. O'Sullivan speculates the syndrome is not a biological or psychological illness in the Western sense, but rather a sociocultural phenomenon.

O'Sullivan goes on to write about additional sociocultural/psychosomatic illnesses, which manifest differently in diverse places and varying ethnic groups.

*****
The Miskito people indigenous to Nicaragua have outbreaks of a condition called grisi siknis, which appears as irrational behavior and hallucinations. Victims have been seen to have convulsions, foam at the mouth, rip off their clothes, run manically, hyperventilate, and break and eat glass. Miskito people don't believe grisi siknis is psychosomatic, but say it's caused by a spirit or demon that (usually) appears as a man.

*****
In the Kazakhstani cities of Krasnogorsk and Kalachi, many residents experienced a mystery illness that drove them from their homes. One victim, named Tamara, got sick at a community party. She tells O'Sullivan that she started to feel strange, light-headed and sleepy and had to leave the party early. Tamara then went home, went to bed, and didn't get up for a few days. Tamara recovered, but never went back to feeling as healthy as she had been before she fell asleep. Tamara was not an isolated case, and many people in the region experienced similar symptoms.

*****
In 2016, an illness called Havana syndrome originated among Western diplomats in Cuba. American and Canadian State Department employees developed symptoms such as headache, earache, hearing impairment, dizziness, tinnitus, unsteadiness, visual disturbance, memory problems, difficulty concentrating and fatigue.

Most of the victims reported hearing a strange noise before their symptoms started, and speculation began that they had been subjected to a sound energy or sonic attack. The FBI and CIA looked high and low for traces of a sound weapon, but found none. Later, new victims appeared in China, and more recently in Serbia and India. Physicians aren't able to explain the sickness, and it appears to be a functional neurological disorder.

*****
In La Cansona, a region of Colombia, schoolgirls got caught up in a health crisis that began in 2014. The phenomenon began in a high school, when a group of girls - all in the same class - collapsed. Some just fell to the floor in a faint and some had convulsions. The condition spread quickly, and within a day, girls in several other classes got sick.

By 2019, it was estimated that, out of 120,000 people in the area, as many as 1,000 girls had fallen ill. The villagers attributed the illness to an HPV vaccine administered years before, but doctors dismissed this as a cause.

*****
High school girls in Le Roy, a town in upstate New York, developed neurological symptoms in 2011. The manifestation began with a teenager name Katie Krautwurst, who woke from a nap to find she had developed involuntary movements and verbal outbursts reminiscent of Tourette's syndrome. Katie twitched and writhed and let out involuntary shouts. Katie's best friend Thera got sick next, and the disorder soon spread to other teenagers. Some victims had convulsions, others couldn't walk. Katie and Thera ultimately needed wheelchairs when the muscle jerks became so violent that they caused them to fall. Doctors could find no somatic cause and the girls were diagnosed with conversion disorder.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Guyana in 2013, where the local people attributed the illness to 'Granny', the spirit of an old woman who lives in a cave.

*****
O'Sullivan discusses all these illnesses in detail, emphasizing that medical tests NEVER demonstrate a somatic cause and patients ALWAYS resist the idea they have a psychosomatic disorder.

O'Sullivan also goes on to discuss Western medicine vs. native remedies; attitudes of doctors to functional neurological disorders; the social stigma associated with having a 'fake' illness; the fact that psychosomatic disorders are attributed more often to females than males; her belief that people with psychosomatic disorders would improve with the correct treatment; the effect of the media on conversion disorders; the effect of culture and tradition on psychosomatic disorders; patients she's treated; and more.

The book is interesting and I liked the parts about O'Sullivan's travels; her interactions with people she met; victims she saw; foods she tried (like Colombian buñuelos (cheese donuts) and Kazakhstani mayonnaise soup); and more

On the downside, the narrative is somewhat repetitive and disjointed. Still, this is a fascinating subject and the book would probably appeal to readers interested in functional neurological disorders.

Thanks to Netgalley, Suzanne O'Sullivan, and Pantheon Books for a copy of the book.

Such an interesting read, I am so sure this is going to fly off the shelves, now more than ever when we are all so keenly aware of health issues. I also wonder if more of the disorders and diseases named in this book will emerge as side effects of COVID? Brilliant read.

3 stars

This was a super interesting and intriguing read. The author does a great job at to combining her interviews, different case studies, and travels into engaging narratives. There were some cases that felt more interesting or compelling than others but overall I thought each case that was brought up really hooked the reader, and by the end of each one I felt like I actually learned something. A very fascinating read that I would recommend others to check out if “mystery” illnesses are your thing.

Book provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

This book, which examines the effects or mental trauma on the body, and calls for an end to the body-mind division, is provocative. Scientific research into somatic manifestations of trauma is still relatively new in Western mainstream medical culture. I appreciated the author's consideration of indigenous and/or ethnic explanations and treatments of the episodes she describes. However, while a lot of the case studies presented here are argued well and with corroborating support, others are not. In the example of "Havana Syndrome," for one, the author ignores the large amount of scholarship on music and sound as a weapon. This book has me thinking, and I'll be interested to talk about it with other readers.

Dr O'Sullivan discusses a plethora of mass functional illnesses, including resignation syndrome from Sweden, Havana syndrome, and several more individual cases.

This was a really interesting read about a subject I did not know too much about. The author did a good job of scouting interesting cases, some more well-known than others. She discusses the background, the disease itself, and what social factors may have caused them.

She also talks about the field of functional illnesses more generally in a clear and engaging manner. I appreciated that we got to go along on her investigation beside her, sharing in her changing thoughts and opinions as she learned more about the illnesses.

I did sometimes find her tone slightly unsympathetic toward the patients, which bothered me, but I think this added veracity to the account. Ultimately I found this an informative, interesting read.

A BIG THANK YOU to Pantheon Books and NetGalley for the ARC of The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness by Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan. In The Sleeping Beauties, Dr. O'Sullivan invites the reader to investigate the invisible inner workings of the mind. Case by case, the complex nature of the mind-body connection is revealed. ★★★★★

From the publisher: A riveting exploration of the phenomenon of psychosomatic disorders, mass hysteria, and other culture-bound syndromes occurring around the world. In Sweden, hundreds of refugee children fall asleep for months and years at a time. In upstate New York, teenage girls develop involuntary twitches and seizures that spread like a contagion. In the US Embassy in Cuba, employees experience headaches and memory loss after hearing strange noises in the night. There are more than 200 officially listed culture-bound syndromes—specific sets of symptoms that exist in a particular culture—affecting people around the world. In The Sleeping Beauties, Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan—a prize winning British neurologist—investigates psychosomatic disorders and mass hysteria, 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 Maria Mountains in Colombia, O'Sullivan records the remarkable stories of culture-bound syndromes related by an array of people from all walks of life. She presents these curious and often distressing case studies of seeming mass hysteria with compassion and humanity, persuasively arguing that psychological suffering demands much greater respect and discussion than it's given at present. In attempting to understand the complexity of psychogenic illness, O'Sullivan has given us a book of both fascination and serious concern as these syndromes continue to proliferate around the globe.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

5 of 5 Stars
Pub Date 21 September 2021
#TheSleepingBeauties #NetGalley

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.

With having a chronic illness myself, an illness that is still quite mysterious, I was very interested in this book. The author explores psychosomatic disorders. She travels the world and interviews quite a view people with such a 'mystery' illness.

I enjoyed her writing style and the way she incorparated the interviews. But even though every chapter was a different case, not every chapter could hold my attention.

A wonderfully humane examination of the social impact on the psychological, of trauma manifested on the mind. While it does not have pat answers or explanations of all the conditions, it gives the reader a beautiful insight into how the mind can work in extreme conditions.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reading copy of this compassionate book that treats patients suffering from functional neurological disorders with respect. Dr. O'Sullivan emphasizes from the opening pages that the symptoms and suffering of people (frequently young women) with what have been called psychosomatic disorders are real, even if they are not pathological.

Through a set of case studies of her own patients and patients and families from Sweden, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Colombia, and the United States, O'Sullivan describes how mass psychogenic illnesses--mass hysteria--have complex causes. These patients are not "fakers" buttheir maladies can't be understood through a search for pathogens and pathology, but through complex socio-cultural examination.

Early in her book on outbreaks of mass psychosomatic illness around the world, neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan observes that “disease impresses people; illness with no evidence of disease does not. Psychological illness, psychosomatic and functional symptoms [that is, symptoms which indicate problems with how the nervous system is working] are the least respected of medical problems.” She proceeds to look at cases in various countries, including Sweden, Kazakhstan, the Miskito Coast of Central America, Columbia, (the US embassy in) Cuba, Guyana, and small-town USA. Many of these cases involve children and teenage girls, and most involve people on the periphery of the dominant culture: ethnic minorities and groups suspicious of the government or caught between two worlds, the traditional and the modern.

Drawing mostly on anthropology, social psychology, and philosophy, the author makes a strong case for the ways in which society and culture shape illness and the means by which extreme symptoms, which can’t be attributed to physical pathology, communicate important messages about conflicts within a group or culture. O’Sullivan says mass hysteria/conversion disorder/psychosomatic or neurological disorder—the phenomenon goes by a variety of interchangeable names—are as “real” as disease in which there is discernible abnormality in the body. She rightly rejects Cartesian mind-body dualism, pointing out that “mind” is a function of the brain, that it too is created from biology and is “not an intangible independent entity.” However, she does not explain how the minds/brains of groups of people actually create illness—that is, how problems with the functioning of their nervous systems cause mass hysteria. There is vague, unsatisfying mention of neural circuitry and of patients paying too much attention to the “white noise” of their bodies, misinterpreting that noise, perseverating on symptoms observed and reinforcing their misinterpretations. It is not clear how all this ties in with the mass events that O’Sullivan is interested in. Noticeably lacking is a discussion of the mechanisms of social contagion. Also absent are footnotes and sources.

While I found <i><b>The Sleeping Beauties</i></b> an interesting and stimulating read, it was not a wholly satisfying one. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for providing me with a digital ARC.

An extremely interesting book about psychosomatic (i.e. functional) diseases. The most important thing you learn is that a psychosomatic disease is a real disease. A person that faints when stressed or anxious even if her blood pressure doesn't drop significantly isn't faking. It's something to be taken seriously and treated, just not as if the cause was organic.

In this book we learn about many functional diseases from all over the world. The sheer pleasure of finding out why two small towns in Kazakhstan were struck by an epidemic of sleeping sickness or why immigrant children in Sweden are entering pseudo-comas is enough to make this a fast paced read. But there is much more too. We get the common sense of Suzanne O'Sullivan's opinions and explanations, something refreshing and much needed in this climate of radical opinions.

The only thing that could distract you in this otherwise excellent book are some of the author's personal recollections which a few times seem gratuitous and artificially inserted.

This book is very clever in toeing a thin line between being a 'popular science' one and an academic monograph. It's very readable, you can generally get a grip on quite complex psychological issues, and – with the Fortean aspects to many of the cases here – you can read about strange medical goings-on, and what the author demands in the way of major changes before we can all understand them when they arise again. That said, the book is far from perfect, introducing a stumbling-block to my satisfaction I'll get to a bit later.

Those cases, then. We start with children of refugees and immigrants, who seem to have involuntarily gone on strike at the idea of being sent back. It's an incompletely understood syndrome, but our neurologist guide is fairly sure it can't be all blamed on something internal, with so many chances of parental influence and just the fact of past traumas all being potential causes. She says the whole environment must be an unmeasurable factor – and the fact all of these children are confined to their beds in Sweden and nowhere else is just one further intrigue.

Next we're in a Nicaraguan community in Texas, to chat with people who know first-hand of 'grisi siknis', something else that defies categorisation. Is it really a 'crazy sickness' brought on by the devil, and/or leprechauns, and/or incubi/succubi, or is there a firm medical cause – or is it a cultural thing whereby certain teenagers feel the need to act up to get attention and a kind of erotic kick? But why is it confined to one region? And how can a medically-trained person tally their experience to the evidence that only shamanic rituals and ideas can cure it?

A surprisingly good turn into travel writing takes us to a pair of villages in Kazakhstan, where a sleeping sickness had killed the places off, although here the writing not only balances travelogue with neuro-psychological science but also adds in something of the investigative, and the conclusion is something best for the reader to find and think about. But this chapter is where the issue I have with all this starts to really show itself. Each of the three cases here not only get discussed in turn, but what we learn with the second is reflected back on the first, and what feels new and definitive to the third gets applied to the previous pair, and so on.

Now, this is not as repetitive as you might expect it to be, but it forces a false, "watch me investigate this!" journalese on to things. Our author knows what she thinks is right and wrong about the issues with the Swedish girls of the title, and of course she has a solution for all the cases – she wouldn't be writing such a book about things if she didn't – but boy she's going to pad it out and leave every case hanging, deferring things as much as seemingly possible.

I liked the cases and what they have to say about our world, from the Colombian girls you might think ill due to the national history of violence – except the malady was in no way national – to embassy workers for the USA newly installed in Havana, and cases of media hysteria prolonging what was once called actual hysteria in up-state New York. Singular people are seen to blow their medical problems up so greatly in their own mind it easily transfers to paralysing degrees in their body. All this, the Fortean side, is wonderfully explained and diagnosed and re-categorised, and this is probably the best writing from the best author to so do. That definitive feel has still earnt this volume a high mark, as you'll have seen, but in lengthening the whole affair on the page greatly, and in prevaricating so often, I don't see either the layman or the academic really served as well as they should by such obfuscation.

I absolutely love this book full of medical mysteries. It was informative and exactly my cup of tea. This book will appeal to even fiction readers.