A year ago, riding in a bike marathon seemed like an impossible challenge since I had only ever ridden my bicycle recreationally, had never done anything marathon-like ever before and had not even been an especially athletic child or youth growing up. Now, less than a year later, bike riding through the Northeast of the […]
My position has always been that the gift of knowledge is maybe one of the most wonderful gifts we can give to others. That’s why I so value the work teachers do. I am still in awe of how children enter school as illiterates and in just a few years are taught how to make
I’d like to use this month’s blog post to highlight a superb article that was published this year on psychogenic non-epileptic seizures in Clinical Psychology Review (issue 47). In my opinion, this publication is what all professionals who work with PNES should be aspiring to contribute to the field. In past blog posts I have
For many it may have taken months to years to reach the point of lying in the hospital bed hearing the words: you don’t have “epilepsy,” you have something we call “psychogenic non-epileptic seizures” or “non-epileptic attack disorder.” Getting here may have involved being seen by more than one doctor, receiving all sorts of other
Many health professionals still hold misconceptions regarding PNES itself. Many still believe that the psychogenic episodes are somehow voluntary in nature. Others are uncertain about prognosis and when it comes to treatment many tend to offer a knee-jerk suggestion of CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) without taking into account that a substantial number of mental health
Six months ago, Prof. Markus Reuber and one of his doctoral graduate students launched a research study in which patients diagnosed with PNES and epilepsy were invited to participate in a writing experience that tested whether this helped them feel more in control of their condition and reduce their seizures and improve their quality of
New International Research Project for persons living with PNES (NEAD) Read More »
This year’s conference promises to be superb. We are honored to have as our invited speaker, pediatric neuropsychiatrist, Dr. Rochelle Caplan of UCLA (http://people.healthsciences.ucla.edu/institution/personnel?personnel_id=8660) and we will have several other wonderful speakers talking about both PNES diagnosis and treatment in adults and children. We are also working to set up talks by a few new
When I was a kid, I was not especially athletic. Rather, I was more on the bookish side of things. In fact, I am a bit ashamed of admitting but on more than one occasion, I convinced my mother to obtain a medical note for me so that I would be allowed to not participate
Warning: the content in this blog post may be upsetting and hurtful to the reader-it contains insulting and coarse language found on-line describing patients with PNES For a few months three of us have been working on a project examining how often PNES (and all the other names that this condition goes by) appears
Pseudoseizures, the bias held by some health professionals and this really has to stop! Read More »
The time and place: Vienna, Austria in the 1800’s. The main character of the story is real: Bertha Pappenheim (AKA Anna O). In Guises of Desire, the author, Hilda Reilly, recounts Bertha’s intense years living with these psychogenic symptoms using a wonderful combination of solid research and imagination. Ms. Reilly descriptions of Bertha’s variety of
