What are a lot of epilepsy centers in the US doing for their patients once they diagnose them with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES)?

 This won’t be a surprise to many patients who have been diagnosed with PNES but some of you may be astonished to read:  Very little if anything. Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures can go misdiagnosed for an average of 7.2 years.1 In an attempt to remedy this devastating delay, the National Association of Epilepsy Centers-NAEC has established the following guidelines: a) When a patients seizures have not been...

Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures: What a Psychologist needs to know

I must receive an average of 10 emails a week from across the US from persons diagnosed with psychogenic seizures (PNES), family members, nurses, and sometimes therapists.  I try very hard to respond to every one as fully as I can, including links and other resources and as quickly as I can because I feel the sense of urgency in them. Some topics keep popping up in these emails.  The most common one is that the...

Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Buenos Aires, Argentina

For 14 years, ever since I first met my first patient diagnosed with PNES, I have known that PNES falls clearly within the scope of practice of psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists. These are the professionals who should be working with this group of patients and who can help them. A major obstacle however is that many of these professionals don’t “know” that they are the best prepared to work...