It's All in Your Head True Stories of Imaginary Illness Synopsis
Pauline first became ill when she was fifteen. What seemed to be a urinary infection became joint pain, then life-threatening appendicitis. After a routine operation Pauline lost all the strength in her legs. Shortly afterwards, convulsions started. But Pauline's tests are normal: her symptoms seem to have no physical cause whatsoever. This may be an extreme case, but Pauline is not alone. As many as a third of people visiting their GP have symptoms that are medically unexplained. In most, an emotional root is suspected which is often the last thing a patient wants to hear and a doctor to say.
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Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan Press Reviews
'Doctors tales of their patients weirder afflictions have been popular since Oliver Sacks ... Few of them, however, are as bizarre or unsettling, as those described in this extraordinary and extraordinarily compassionate book' -- James McConnachie Sunday Times
'An important study of psychosomatic illness, which shows it to be a serious disease of modern society: misunderstood, misdiagnosed and surrounded by fear' -- Louise Carpenter Telegraph
'An extraordinary book... an important one too' -- Kathryn Hughes, 5 stars Mail on Sunday
'Honest, fascinating and necessary' -- David Aaronovitch The Times
'This vital, engaging book... holds its own with recent bestsellers Do No Harm, the memoir of a neurosurgeon, and The Examined Life, by psychiatrist Stephen Grosz' -- Hermione Eyre Newsweek
About Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan
Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan has been a consultant in neurology since 2004, first working at The Royal London Hospital and now as a consultant in clinical neurophysiology and neurology at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, and for a specialist unit based at the Epilepsy Society. In that role she has developed an expertise in working with patients with psychogenic disorders alongside her work with those suffering with physical diseases such as epilepsy. Suzanne's book about psychosomatic illness, It's All in Your Head, was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize in 2016.
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