William Walters Sargant (24 April 1907 – 27 August 1988) was a British psychiatrist who is remembered for the evangelical zeal with which he promoted treatments such as psychosurgery, deep sleep treatment, electroconvulsive therapy and insulin shock therapy. Sargant studied medicine at St John's College, Cambridge, and qualified as a doctor at St Mary's Hospital, London. His ambition to be a physician was thwarted by a disastrous piece of research and a nervous breakdown, after which he turned his attention to psychiatry. Having trained under Edward Mapother at the Maudsley Hospital, in South London, he worked at the Sutton Emergency Medical Service during the Second World War. In 1948 he was appointed director of the department of psychological medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, London, and remained there until (and after) his retirement in 1972, whilst also treating patients at other hospitals, building up a lucrative private practice in Harley Street, and working as a media psychiatrist. Sargant co-authored a textbook on physical treatment in psychiatry that ran to five editions. He wrote numerous articles in the medical and lay press, an autobiography, The Unquiet Mind, and a book titled Battle for the Mind in which he discusses the nature of the process by which our minds are subject to influence by others. Although remembered as a major force in British psychiatry in the post-war years, his enthusiasm for discredited treatments such as insulin shock therapy and deep sleep treatment, his distaste for all forms of psychotherapy, and his reliance on dogma rather than clinical evidence have confirmed his reputation as a controversial figure whose work is seldom cited in modern psychiatric texts. Early life and medical career Sargant was born into a large and wealthy Methodist family in Highgate, London. His father was a City broker, his mother, Alice Walters, was the daughter of a Methodist minister from a family of wealthy Welsh brewers. Five of his uncles were preachers. He had two brothers—human rights campaigner Thomas Sargant and Bishop of Mysore, Norman C. Sargant, and five sisters. Sargant went to the Leys School in Cambridge and then studied medicine at St John's College, Cambridge. He did not excel academically but played rugby for St John's College, was president of Cambridge University Medical Society and collected autographs of famous medical men. Sargant obtained a rugby scholarship to complete his medical education at St Mary's Hospital. His father lost most of