On Monday 25 April, the winner of the Wellcome Book Prize 2016 was announced as consultant neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan, for It’s All in Your Head, her journey through the world of psychosomatic illness.
It’s All in Your Head
This is Suzanne O’Sullivan’s first book, a focused look at the range of debilitating illnesses that are medically unexplained. We all exhibit physical responses to emotion – from blushing and laughter, to palpitations and stomach-ache – yet sometimes these expressions can be much more debilitating, causing seizures, paralysis, and even blindness, and the stigmatization associated with such a diagnosis is profound.
As many as a third of people visiting their GP have symptoms that don’t appear to have an obvious medical cause. Merging autobiography with absorbing case histories taken from her clinical experience, O’Sullivan’s work spotlights an area of increased attention in medical science – the boundaries between what afflicts the body and the mind and how deeply related the one is to the other.
Announcing the winner, chair of judges Joan Bakewell, said:
“From a broad field of submissions, including an exceptionally strong shortlist, Suzanne O’Sullivan’s
It’s All in Your Head was unanimously chosen as our winner of the Wellcome Book Prize 2016. It is a truly impressive book, chosen for its many virtues. Suzanne O’Sullivan is a consultant neurologist and her first-hand accounts of diagnosing her patients offer new insights into the relationship between the body and the mind. The fact that society divides them into two medical disciplines – the physical and the mental – is being increasingly challenged. O’Sullivan’s book brings to light important examples of how the two inter-relate.”
The winning book was chosen from an incredibly strong and varied shortlist – find out more about the shortlist now.
The Prize was promoted through hundreds of libraries and institutions, and many of them took part in our #curiousdisplay competition. Take a look at all of the displays on our Facebook page. The winning display was from Orkney Library, and librarian Stewart Bain attended the Awards in London to represent Orkney Library.
“Thanks to the Wellcome Trust and The Reading Agency for bringing me to London for the party. It was wonderful to spend the evening with so many people who share a passion for books and reading.”
For more information, please visit www.wellcomebookprize.org or follow the Prize on Twitter.
