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...

Psychogenic non epileptic seizures: why is your memory so bad if this is all psychological?

An almost universal cognitive complaint in persons with PNES is that their memory is bad and it is not unusual after going through neuropsychological testing of memory (verbal, visual, etc.), that these complaints are officially confirmed.  Although we are not sure, these memory problems are probably due to more than one reason.    The most obvious answer is that if you are clinically depressed or anxious (which...

The connection between Psychological (Psychogenic) non epileptic seizures and a history of trauma

How many people with PNES have a history of trauma? An interesting article was published in the Journal Epilepsy and Behavior ( 2004) by Fiszman et.  al. It reviewed 17 PNES studies and found that traumatic events and PTSD in persons with PNES were very common.  Depending on the study: 44-100% of PNES patients had suffered some form of general trauma and 23-77% had a history of physical or sexual abuse.  What is...

So you’ve been told you have PNES – What’s that?

You’ve certainly been dealt a real challenge.  Why? Because PNES is  a very complicated psychological condition that seems to defy logic.  There are however some promising treatments. We only need to figure out who they will serve best. In my opinion, the biggest problem lies in that we may be lumping different conditions into one single category and asking questions from a single viewpoint.  How do we define...