| International Standard Book Number |
9798887073163 (eISBN)
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| International Standard Book Number |
9781419774478 (hardcover)
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| International Standard Book Number |
1419774476 (hardcover)
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| Personal Name |
Stock, Jon, author.
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| Title Statement |
The Sleep Room : a sadistic psychiatrist and the women who survived him / Jon Stock.
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| Production, Publication, Distribution, Manufacture, and Copyright Notice |
New York, NY : Abrams Press, 2025.
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| Physical Description |
416 pages ; 24 cm.
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| General Note |
"First published in the UK in 2025 by the Bridge Street Press, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group"--Title page verso.
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| Bibliography, Etc. Note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 345-351) and index.
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| Formatted Contents Note |
Part 1. "Lobotomy would be the next course of treatment for me" -- Celia Imrie -- "The full horror of Hanwell was closing in on me" -- "Thrashed time after time" -- "Took first dose, wrote this story" -- "With skilful handling death should be avoided" -- "Roasted alive in a white-hot furnace" -- Mary Thornton -- "Wizardry of surgery restores sanity to fifty raving maniacs" -- "The Versailles of the New York rich" -- "A fifth nurse would hold the head" -- "Sara" -- "There are all sorts of ways of spending a honeymoon" -- "This form of therapy remains dangerous" -- "His wife is very well indeed but not quite perfect" -- "Every dog had its breaking point" -- "The upper eyelid of the patient is pinched between thumb and finger" -- Part 2. "The final one did it. The final one did it!" -- "Somehow they took his soul apart" -- "Such sudden social degradation can prove most effective" -- Linda Keith -- Part 3. "Ewen was being fished by the CIA" -- "A Manhattan Project of the mind" -- "We must always remember to thank the CIA and the Army for LSD" -- "The big radiator in front of us...began to play like a concertina" -- "He said, 'Norm, did you ever see a man die?'" -- "Massive electroshock seemed promising" -- "The voice seems to scream at me all the time" -- "It was terrifying...you become very small" -- Anne White -- "The thing to do is to give continuous sleep" -- "I don't suppose it's breaking the Official Secrets Act to say this..." -- I couldn't imagine why the CIA would be interested in my work" -- Part 4. "There was nothing about them that was human" -- "Actually, Dr Sargant, I feel suicidal this morning" -- "She told me that Sargant killed...a patient" -- "Freya" -- "There was a Russian man...it was the talk of the hospital" -- "Reduced him to a zombie, poor dog" -- "The Narcosis room appeared to be particularly overcrowded" -- "Can I buy you a Rolls-Royce?" -- "Wanted: information on William Sargant."
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| Summary, Etc. |
"The Sleep Room is thriller novelist Jon Stock's investigation into one of the most revered figures in British postwar medicine, the private world of the Sleep Room in Ward 5, and the science of the psychology that produced it. Building on the testimony of eight survivors, Stock looks at the problem of the limited tool kit psychology has at its disposal, and the shadowy interface between medicine, the intelligence community, and dangerous charlatans. Dr. William Sargant ran a lucrative private practice and published multiple books on psychiatry, and he was awarded the Starkey medal and prize by the Royal Society of Health for his work on psychiatric medicine. But what he was best known for was the apogee of his career: the Sleep Room in Ward 5. This was a dark gallery where patients selected by Sargant were, often without their consent or that of their families, subjected to deep narcosis, sleeping for more than 21 hours per day for weeks at a time, and roused only for sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. There, Sargent practiced his enthusiasm for now-discredited treatments such as lobotomy and electroshock therapy with zeal. Inspired by the work of Pavlov on conditioning in dogs, and by the post-Freudian revolution in psychiatric pharmacology, Sargant believed in aggressive interventions. When his patients finished their treatment, they had lost not only memories of trauma, but also any sense of who they were or why they were there. At least four of them died in the room. Between 1964 and 1972, hundreds of women were treated in the now-shuttered ward of the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Women and Children. A group of survivors, now in their 60s and 70s, have come forward to share their stories and advocate for change." -- Provided by publisher.
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| Subject-Personal Name |
Sargant, William Walters.
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| Subject-Corporate Name |
Royal Waterloo Hospital (London, England)
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Psychic trauma.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Deception.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Memory.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Hoaxes.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Psychiatrists Great Britain Biography.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Psychiatrists Malpractice Great Britain.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Women Crimes against 20th century. Great Britain
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Psychiatry History 20th century.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Frontal lobotomy.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Electroconvulsive therapy.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Sleep therapy.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Psychotherapy patients.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Involuntary treatment.
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| Index Term-Genre/Form |
Biographies.
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| Index Term-Genre/Form |
True crime stories.
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