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  • It's All in Your Head

  • Stories from the Frontline of Psychosomatic Illness
  • By: Suzanne O'Sullivan
  • Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
  • Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (21 ratings)

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It's All in Your Head

By: Suzanne O'Sullivan
Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
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Publisher's Summary

Winner of the Wellcome Book Prize 2016

Pauline first became ill when she was 15. 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 GPs 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.

We accept our hearts can flutter with excitement and our brows can sweat with nerves, but on this journey into the very real world of psychosomatic illness, Suzanne O'Sullivan finds the secrets we are all capable of keeping from ourselves.

©2016 Susan O'Sullivan (P)2016 Audible, Ltd

Critic 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)
"A fascinating glimpse into the human condition...a forceful call for society to be more open about such suffering." (Ian Birrell, Daily Mail)

What listeners say about It's All in Your Head

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Brilliant Info

I love O’Sullivan’s books. Beyond insightful. I highly recommend her books to anyone interested in how the brain works.

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A helpful book to anyone and everyone

As a health care professional and someone whose travelled with my own mental health journey-this is an important book. Written as a series of compelling stories interspersed with facts, evidence, historical recounts and personal reflections-its easy to stay engaged. I believe strongly in the enequality of validation, support and kindkess to the little understood world.of somatic disorders. We all suffer from them in varying degrees, so everyone should at least try to understand this to improve ourselves as humans. Honestly it was a little triggering at times as I have a close family member who suffers from non epileptic seizures and see it all day at workand in my own family-but this has prompted me check myself and reflect more clearly. Also great as an audio book, great narration.

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Fabulous Awareness

Help me to recognize issues of family and clients, creating a new perspective to spread the awareness to people.
Congrats for the great years of work.

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