Medicalising the mind with Suzanne O'Sullivan

BMJ talk medicine

Our environment moulds our brains, and alters development, and so there are culture-bound ways that our bodies express distress. In this week’s episode, we discuss the mysterious phenomenon of Sweden’s ‘sleeping beauties’: asylum-seeking children who were affected by resignation syndrome, which led them to become completely inert. We talk about the pros and cons of applying medical labels to people’s symptoms – are we applying labels too easily, and over-medicalising things which could be classed as normal? Being given a diagnosis may provide some relief to a person experiencing certain symptoms, but, in doing so, are GPs actually creating more patients? Our guest: Suzanne O’Sullivan is a consultant in clinical neurophysiology and neurology, based at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London. Her specialist interests are in epilepsy and functional neurological disorders. She is also the author of ‘The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness’.