Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan | Background

Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan qualified in medicine in 1991 from Trinity College Dublin, training in neurology and clinical neurophysiology. Since 2004 she has been a consultant, working since 2011 at The National Hospital for Neurology and The Epilepsy Society since 2011.

In 2015, Suzanne completed an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck College.

Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan | Books

Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan has published three books. In 2015 she published It’s All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness. The book explores issues surrounding psychosomatic illness and neurological manifestations of psychosomatic illness. It discuses the mind-body connection with stories of O’Sullivan’s patients, taking a compassionate look at the serious medical problems that can arise through pure psychological mechanisms.

In the book, Suzanne shares the history of the hysteria from ancient to modern times and goes on to discuss diagnosis, causes, mechanisms and treatment of neurological psychosomatic disorders in the modern world.

Following the success of her first book, Suzanne published Brainstorm: The Detective Stories from the World of Neurology in 2018.

Brainstorm explores how the study of epilepsy changed scientists’ understanding of the brain. It looks at modern views and treatments for epilepsy and what they teach about how the brain works.

Suzanne’s third book, The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness, was published in 2021. Here she travels the world visiting communities that had been affected bymass hysteria and culture bound syndromes. It looks at a Tourette’s-like syndrome spreading through a New York high school, schoolgirls in Colombia that experienced an outbreak of contagious seizures, people in Kazakhstan who suffered a contagious sleeping sickness and attacks of ‘crazy sickness’ affecting indigenous people of Nicaragua.

Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan | Awards and Nominations

• Winner of the Wellcome Book Prize 2016 for It’s All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness.
• Winner of the Royal Society of Biology General Book Prize for It’s All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness.
• Shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag readers award 2016 for It’s All in Your Head
• Winner of the AITO Travel Writer of the Year in 2018 for her piece entitled ‘Going off the grid on Indonesia’s forgotten islands’ published in the Telegraph magazine
• Shortlisted for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize in 2021 for The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness.
• Nominated for Next Big Idea Club’s top books of 2021 for The Sleeping Beauties and other stories of mystery illness.

Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan | Speaking Topics

• Psychogenic Disorders
• The Mystery of the Brain
• The Complexity of Epilepsy
• The Reality of Imaginary Illness
• Why Does the Brain Filter Information?
• The Brain Detective and Stories From the Brain

Call +44 1753 439 289 or email Great British Speakers now to book clinical neurophysiology consultant, epilepsy and psychosomatic illness expert and author Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan to speak at your next event.  Contact us.

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