Could Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy be useful in treating psychogenic non-epileptic seizures?

Up to 90% of patients with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) report histories of significant trauma (often childhood sexual and physical abuse).  If we compare with control groups and the general US population, we find that in fact, patients with psychogenic non epileptic seizures have suffered more abuse than these other groups.   As for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), studies have reported...

Talking about psychogenic non epileptic seizures in Guadalajara, Mexico

Last week, I was invited to the Third International Neuropsychology conference in Guadalajara on Rehabilitation and Epilepsy. It gave me a wonderful opportunity to talk about a little known condition that is actually quite common in epilepsy centers: psychogenic non epileptic seizures.  The conference had drawn 500 attendees (psychology students, neuropsychologists and neurologists from all over Latin America). The...

Psychogenic non epileptic seizures: When life throws you a hurricane

These last two weeks have been stressful for anyone who lives in the Northeast (USA). Understandably, the news has been the main topic for all my patients with psychogenic seizures.  And I admit it, even this psychologist was rattled. Two earthquakes 5 days apart (note that our last earthquake was around 100 years ago), a 500 mile wide hurricane barreling towards New York City, flooding, the tenth anniversary of...

The stigma of psychogenic non epileptic seizures (PNES) is still with us

The topic for this month’s post came to me after finding a thread of comments made by emergency medical professionals (EMPs) about psychogenic non epileptic seizures (http://www.emtlife.com/showthread.php?p=299085).  It was saddening to read how EMPs talked about how they are often berated by hospital staff for bringing in patients with non epileptic seizures. I hope reading this moves you to want to do something...

Psychogenic, pseudo, psychological: why does PNES have so many names?

Does it matter what we call PNES? In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette, she said: What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet… Similarly, as kids we were taught: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. What do these two statements mean?  That what you are is what matters, not what you are called, that words are not powerful.  But actually,...