The Sleep Room

A Sadistic Psychiatrist and the Women Who Survived Him

By: Jon Stock

Narrated by: Richard Armitage, Celia Imrie, Antonia Beamish

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.

©2025 Jon Stock (P)2025 Tantor Media

A Disturbing and Difficult Listen

While this was a story that needed to be told, it was also a disturbing and difficult listen. The experimental treatments performed on patients was so horrific it was hard to feel anything but anger and disbelief. The recollections of survivors of the Sleep Room and their continued health/mental issues after leaving was gut-wrenching. The story not only shows the history of post-war psychiatric treatments (which are not used and considered barbaric today), but also discusses government involvement in certain experiments and conspiracies that can leave your mind reeling.

Jon Stock wrote an gripping thriller that may leave the listener quite emotional. Richard Armitage, Celia Imrie and Antonia Beamish were incredible as narrators.

NOTE: I did chuckle at comments made about a certain person in this story.

William Sargant and British post-war psychiatric practices

I chose this audiobook as a fan of Richard Armitage; his narration is superb, but this is a thoroughly dispiriting chronicle of medical practices, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s,which were literally shocking, dangerous and abusive. The audiobook focuses on Dr William Sargant and others, with the personal recollections of several female victims, and features the involvement of the CIA, the spy agency. Recommended for listeners who are not put off by reading about abuse.

Missed opportunity

I thought this book was going to be about mistreatment of patients (especially misdiagnosis of women). Instead it was a conspiracy theory lecture about possible CIA involvement. Overall the most disappointing non-fiction read.