The Sleep Room
By
Jon Stock
Release:
07/22/2025
Release:
07/22/2025
Release:
07/22/2025
Runtime:
11h 47m
Runtime:
11h 47m
Runtime:
11h 47m
Unabridged
Quantity:
“A trio of narrators lend their considerable talents to this nonfiction work…Sargant was, by all accounts, an egotistical predator, and Richard Armitage’s smooth, level narration displays that perfectly as he describes lobotomies and electroconvulsive therapies without an iota of remorse. Celia Imrie, one of Sargant’s victims, narrates her own chapter of betrayal, abuse, and recovery. Antonia Beamish handles the narration for the other women who received these heinous treatments without their consent. Listeners will squirm as these narrators speak for the victims and revel in their eventual freedom—despite lasting ill effects.”
AudioFile
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 Five, and the science of the psychology that produced it.
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 Five.
This was a dark gallery where patients selected by Sargant were subjected to deep narcosis, sleeping for more than twenty-one hours per day for weeks at a time, and roused only for sessions of electroconvulsive therapy.
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 sixties and seventies, have come forward to share their stories and advocate for change.
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 Five.
This was a dark gallery where patients selected by Sargant were subjected to deep narcosis, sleeping for more than twenty-one hours per day for weeks at a time, and roused only for sessions of electroconvulsive therapy.
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 sixties and seventies, have come forward to share their stories and advocate for change.
Release:
2025-07-22
2025-07-22
2025-07-22
Runtime:
Runtime:
Runtime:
11h 47m
11h 47m
11h 47m
Format:
audio
audio
audio
Weight:
0.0 lb
0.95 lb
0.5 lb
Language:
English
ISBN:
9798331942625
9798228600614
9798228600621
Publisher:
Tantor
Tantor
Tantor
Praise