Wellcome book prize goes to psychosomatic illness study

Neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan’s It’s All in Your Head wins the £30,000 award for ‘thoughtful, humane and heartfelt’ study

Neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan’s exploration of psychosomatic illness, It’s All in Your Head, has won the £30,000 Wellcome book prize, praised by judges for offering “new insights into the relationship between the body and the mind”.

The annual award is for a book that best engages with “an aspect of medicine, health or illness”. O’Sullivan’s book, her debut, relates her own encounters with patients who have debilitating but medically unexplained illnesses. It was up against novels from Sarah Moss and Alex Pheby, memoirs by Cathy Rentzenbrink and Amy Liptrot, and Steve Silberman’s investigation into autism, Neurotribes.

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