The Sleep Room

A Very British Medical Scandal
The disturbing true story of an all-powerful British doctor called William Sargant who in the 1960s and 1970s abused his female patients with the full blessing of the psychiatric establishment.
'Shocking. a damning portrait of a man who, in the name of psychiatric progress, left a trail of broken lives in his wake' Telegraph, five stars

'Compelling' Sunday Times and chosen as one of the best 80 books to take on holiday

'A gripping expose' Financial Times

'Lacerating' Blake Morrison, Guardian Book of the Day

'A beautifully researched, wildly unsettling study of a psychiatrist running amok' Sam Knight, author of The Premonitions Bureau

"Richly sourced and admirable in its clarity about the importance of speaking to those who were treated by and knew Sargant," Dr Kate Womersley, The Lancet

'Shocking investigation' The Times, chosen as a best book of 2025

The Royal Waterloo Hospital, London in the 1960s. Six young women lie asleep on low beds. Day and night no longer exist, extinguished by a potent cocktail of antipsychotic, sedative and anti-depressant drugs. The women are taken from their beds by the nurses and given electroconvulsive therapy before being put to sleep again. All under the predatory eye of Dr William Sargant.

THE SLEEP ROOM is a chilling expose of Sargant's bizarre psychiatric treatments that were inflicted on hundreds of women with mental illness - among them the actor Celia Imrie. At the story's centre is a sinister and charismatic doctor, who was a hugely influential figure in post-war British society - lauded by Robert Graves and Aldous Huxley as well regularly appearing on the BBC. When Sargant died in 1988, the obituaries were glowing.

But since then, women treated without their consent and with often horrific side-effects lasting decades have been campaigning to tell the truth about Sargant. Author Jon Stock tells these women's stories as well delving into the murky history of Sargant's links with the CIA and M15, both of which took a close interest in his efforts to reprogramme the human mind.

As compulsive as a thriller, The Sleep Room finally gets to the truth of a scandal at the heart of the British medical establishment.

'A devastating account of the effects one unchecked psychiatrist had on vulnerable mental patients.'

Lisa Appignanesi, author of Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors

'A gripping medical biography that encompasses sex, drugs, brainwashing, intelligence operations, murder and several scandals' Frank Tallis, author of Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna and the Discovery of the Modern Mind

'A chilling case study in dangerous psychiatry, Stock's gripping expose of the invasive and reckless interventions inflicted on women

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