Books / Lived experience, memoir & fiction
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
Oliver Sacks’s 1985 collection presents clinical narratives about people living with neurological conditions. The cases explore how neurological differences affect individual lives.
Book details
Author of listed edition: Oliver Sacks
Edition: 1985 US edition
Publisher: Summit Books
Edition year: 1985
Language and origin: English (United Kingdom / United States)
Form and genre: Memoir, Fiction & Lived Experience
Level: Introductory
Historical era: 1980–2009 · Evidence-Based, Trauma & Integrative Era
Covers: Neurological conditions described through individual case narratives; Sacks’s interest in patients’ experiences and lives; Accounts grouped under losses, excesses, transports and the world of the simple
APA 7th reference: Sacks, O. (1985). The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales. Summit Books.
What it is
First published in 1985, this collection by neurologist Oliver Sacks brings together case narratives concerning neurological conditions. The US edition listed here was published by Summit Books.
What it covers
The author’s website describes people whose conditions affect perception, memory and movement. Sacks presents the cases as accounts of individual lives as well as neurological phenomena.
Relationship to therapy
The book concerns neurological practice and the experience of illness, rather than offering a psychotherapy manual. Its narrative approach may interest readers considering how professionals describe people and their experiences.
Scope and reading note
Individual case narratives do not establish treatment effectiveness or predict another person’s experience. The complete book was not consulted for this record; its historical terminology and interpretations should be read in context.
Paired academic and clinical scholarship
Paired work: The Making of Mind: A Personal Account of Soviet Psychology (Chapter 10: "Romantic Science") (Alexander Romanovich Luria, 1979)
Reference: Luria, A. R. (1979). The making of mind: A personal account of Soviet psychology (M. Cole & S. Cole, Eds.). Harvard University Press.
Luria’s account of his work in psychology. The full text was not checked for this entry.
Source-mapped claims and evidence notes
Claim 1: The collection describes individual experiences of neurological conditions. (The author’s website was consulted; the complete book was not reviewed for this record.) [Source 1: Oliver Sacks. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Author website.]
Sources and inspection notes
Oliver Sacks. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Author website.
Supports: Description of the collection and its neurological cases. The full book was not consulted.
WorldCat. The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales.
Supports: Catalogue record for the 1985 Summit Books edition.
Supports: Catalogue identifies ISBN 9780684853949 with a later 1998 paperback rather than the 1985 Summit Books edition.