The Sleeping Beauties
And Other Stories of Mystery Illness
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Narrated by:
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Suzanne O'Sullivan
About this listen
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 US 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.
©2021 Suzanne O'Sullivan (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"At once poignant, surprising and sometimes horrifying.... Empathic.... Dr. O’Sullivan uncovers these complex mechanisms while painting a picture of psychosomatic suffering that removes its associated stigma.... Radical.... 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." (Wall Street Journal)
"Fascinating and provocative...[O'Sullivan is ] a globe-trotting Lisa Sanders: a briskly professional but secretly tenderhearted disease detective on a mission to dispel misconceptions that have become obstacles to cures...O’Sullivan’s logic is, well, infectious." (New York Times)
"In my view the best science writer around - a true descendant of Oliver Sacks." (Sathnam Sanghera, author of The Boy with the Topknot)
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Buy this book! and READ it
- By joyce on 08-15-13
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The Spectrum of Hope
- An Optimistic and New Approach to Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias
- By: Gayatri Devi MD
- Narrated by: Wendy Tremont King
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Imagine finding a glimmer of good news in a diagnosis of Alzheimer's. And imagine how that would change the outlook of the five million Americans who suffer from Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, not to mention their families, loved ones, and caretakers. A neurologist who's been specializing in dementia and memory loss for more than 20 years, Dr. Gayatri Devi rewrites the story of Alzheimer's by defining it as a spectrum disorder - like autism, Alzheimer's is a disease that affects different people differently.
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Aging with Grace
- By Lisa F on 05-19-21
By: Gayatri Devi MD
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In Pain
- A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle with Opioids
- By: Travis Rieder
- Narrated by: Travis Rieder
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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A bioethicist’s eloquent and riveting memoir of opioid dependence and withdrawal - a harrowing personal reckoning and clarion call for change not only for government but medicine itself, revealing the lack of crucial resources and structures to handle this insidious nationwide epidemic.
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An essential read in a time of crisis
- By Kelly Heuer on 06-25-19
By: Travis Rieder
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COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science
- By: Marc Siegel MD
- Narrated by: Peter Van Norden
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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COVID-19 has stolen our security and our nation's peace of mind. There is a pandemic virus as well as a crippling epidemic of fear sweeping America. Why? The answer, according to nationally renowned health commentator Dr. Marc Siegel, is that we already lived in an artificially created culture of fear that was just waiting to be unleashed. In COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science, Siegel identifies three major catalysts of the culture of fear - government, the media, and our own psyche.
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Informative and well sourced
- By A. Powers on 10-12-21
By: Marc Siegel MD
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Wuhan Diary
- Dispatches from a Quarantined City
- By: Fang Fang, Michael Berry - translator
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 25, 2020, after the central government imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, acclaimed Chinese writer Fang Fang began publishing an online diary. In the days and weeks that followed, Fang Fang’s nightly postings gave voice to the fears, frustrations, anger, and hope of millions of her fellow citizens, reflecting on the psychological impact of forced isolation, the role of the internet as both community lifeline and source of misinformation, and most tragically, the lives of neighbors and friends taken by the deadly virus.
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In-depth look at life under quarantine
- By Yan Chen on 06-18-20
By: Fang Fang, and others
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The Gift of Adversity
- The Unexpected Benefits of Life's Difficulties, Setbacks, and Imperfections
- By: Norman E. Rosenthal M.D.
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The noted research psychiatrist explores how life's disappointments and difficulties provide us with the lessons we need to become better, bigger, and more resilient human beings. Adversity is an irreducible fact of life. Although we can and should learn from all experiences, both positive and negative best-selling author Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal believes that adversity is by far the best teacher most of us will ever encounter.
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Book ruined by the narrator
- By David C. on 12-07-22
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The Body Keeps the Score
- Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
- By: Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent more than three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.
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Overall Worthwhile, Lingers Too Long in the Why
- By LittleBeadsOfMercury on 04-07-21
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Peace, Love & Healing
- Bodymind Communication & the Path to Self-Healing: An Exploration
- By: Bernie S. Siegel
- Narrated by: Bernie S. Siegel
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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A classic of patient empowerment, Peace, Love & Healing offered the revolutionary message that we have an innate ability to heal ourselves. Now proven by numerous scientific studies, the connection between our minds and our bodies has been increasingly accepted as fact throughout the mainstream medical community. In a new introduction, Dr. Bernie Siegel highlights current research on the relationships among consciousness, psychosocial factors, attitude, and immune function.
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horrible horrible
- By Honestly on 02-09-15
By: Bernie S. Siegel
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Counterclockwise
- Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility
- By: Ellen J. Langer
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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If we could turn back the clock psychologically, could we also turn it back physically? For more than 30 years, award-winning social psychologist Ellen Langer has studied this provocative question, and now has a conclusive answer: opening our minds to what's possible, instead of clinging to accepted notions about what's not, can lead to better health at any age.
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Surprisingly disappointing
- By Stephen on 06-23-09
By: Ellen J. Langer
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Manufacturing Depression
- The Secret History of a Modern Disease
- By: Gary Greenberg
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Am I happy enough? This has been a pivotal question since America's inception. "Am I not happy enough because I am depressed?" is a more recent version. Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg shows how depression has been manufactured---not as an illness but as an idea about our suffering, its source, and its relief. He challenges us to look at depression in a new way.
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Modern Gonzo Tour de Force
- By S. Frank on 11-12-11
By: Gary Greenberg
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Confessions of a GP
- By: Benjamin Daniels
- Narrated by: Eamonn Riley
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions.A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor.
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Very enjoyable
- By PCF on 05-27-17
By: Benjamin Daniels
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Inferno
- A Doctor's Ebola Story
- By: Steven Hatch MD
- Narrated by: Steven Hatch MD
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Steven Hatch first came to Liberia in November 2013 to work at a hospital in Monrovia. Six months later, several of the physicians Dr. Hatch had mentored and served with were dead or barely clinging to life, and Ebola had become a world health emergency. Hundreds of victims perished each week; whole families were destroyed in a matter of days; so many died so quickly that the culturally taboo practice of cremation had to be instituted to dispose of the bodies.
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Good story, spoiled by politics.
- By Roman Vogel on 07-22-17
By: Steven Hatch MD
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Everything in Its Place
- First Loves and Last Tales
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling author of Gratitude and On the Move, a final volume of essays that showcase Sacks's broad range of interests - from his passion for ferns, swimming, and horsetails, to his final case histories exploring schizophrenia, dementia, and Alzheimer's.
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Missing Sacks
- By Brandy on 12-02-19
By: Oliver Sacks
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Early
- An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human
- By: Sarah DiGregorio
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The heart of many hospitals is the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It is a place where humanity, ethics, and science collide in dramatic and deeply personal ways as parents, doctors, and nurses grapple with sometimes unanswerable questions: When does life begin? When and how should life end? And what does it mean to be human? Nearly 20 years ago, Dr. John D. Lantos wrote The Lazarus Case, a seminal work on ethical dilemmas in neonatology. He described the NICU as “a strong, strange, powerful place”. The
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Gripping read for this late preterm infant mom
- By R. Ash on 08-08-21
By: Sarah DiGregorio