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A review by socraticgadfly
The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
A simply great, and straightforward, book on psychosomatic illness, or functional neurological disorder, as O'Sullivan notes the more modern term is.
She visits several sites to see modern such cases in action, or in a couple of cases, at their tale end or afterward. Some involve a few individuals, but others involve larger groups. She notes that in such cases, it's not mass psychogenic illness, but mass sociogenic — the group is part of the induction.
Especially with groups, she notes people don't want to accept such prognoses, because they find it shaming and believe that this is a claim they are "faking it." O'Sullivan notes that is not the case, while also noting officials making pronouncements of psychogenic illness often don't explain that in particular and don't present the diagnosis well in general.
And so, alternative explanations are sought, such as in traditionalist religion in some cases, or things like antivaxxer conspiracies in others. With individuals, sometimes it's outside society that doesn't want to accept a psychogenic illness identification because they know it's an indictment of wider society. Here, O'Sullivan's first case, children of asylum seekers in Sweden who have had their asylum claims rejected at least once, and many the maximum three times, exhibiting "resignation syndrome" (also displayed elsewhere) come to mind. The Swedish doctor in the book, at least, clearly doesn't want to accept that these children are reacting to their parents' asylum claims being rejected, their internalization of their parents' fear, etc.
She visits several sites to see modern such cases in action, or in a couple of cases, at their tale end or afterward. Some involve a few individuals, but others involve larger groups. She notes that in such cases, it's not mass psychogenic illness, but mass sociogenic — the group is part of the induction.
Especially with groups, she notes people don't want to accept such prognoses, because they find it shaming and believe that this is a claim they are "faking it." O'Sullivan notes that is not the case, while also noting officials making pronouncements of psychogenic illness often don't explain that in particular and don't present the diagnosis well in general.
And so, alternative explanations are sought, such as in traditionalist religion in some cases, or things like antivaxxer conspiracies in others. With individuals, sometimes it's outside society that doesn't want to accept a psychogenic illness identification because they know it's an indictment of wider society. Here, O'Sullivan's first case, children of asylum seekers in Sweden who have had their asylum claims rejected at least once, and many the maximum three times, exhibiting "resignation syndrome" (also displayed elsewhere) come to mind. The Swedish doctor in the book, at least, clearly doesn't want to accept that these children are reacting to their parents' asylum claims being rejected, their internalization of their parents' fear, etc.