What if a patient has psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) but does not report any significant psychological trauma?

It is important for mental health professionals to be cognizant of this because these patients exist and are encountered in psychotherapists’ offices with certain regularity. For decades if not centuries (if we look back to Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud) it has been understood that psychological trauma is an important risk factor in the development of PNES and other conversion disorders.  However, we can really...

How important is alexithymia in the treatment of psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES)? (Post for clinicians)

Spoiler alert: Important in patients who have PNES and high alexithymia What is alexithymia? Basically, it is, not having words for emotions (a=not having, lexi=word, thymia=emotion) or in other words, having a hard time identifying and describing feelings. In psychology it is associated with two concepts: emotional knowledge (EK) and emotional regulation (ER). EK has to do with: 1) Being able to identify...

Breaking news: Results of a major Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Study for psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (dissociative seizures) just published

Recently, Goldstein et al published their results from a randomized CBT treatment versus “treatment as usual” (TAU) study in which treatment outcome in patients who had a history of dissociative seizures was compared (Goldstein et al., 2020). The study is the largest and most well-designed study to date. It included an initial 3-month observation period — during which patients were asked to keep a careful log...

Drumroll…. Fifth Annual Conference on Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) will be taking place this October!

Five years ago, at the Northeast Regional Epilepsy Group, we took a leap into the unknown and organized our first ever PNES conference for patient and caregivers. Just days before the conference was to take place, we were understandably nervous.  We wondered if anyone would even show up, if there was any interest in the topic, and if this would be the first and last PNES conference. Fast forward now to five years...

A firefighter diagnosed with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was just featured in a news article

Yesterday, an article in print and video format came out in which a Canadian firefighter describes the long road he traveled with his diagnosis of PNES. In it, he explains how he started to have problems after experiencing three sequential traumatic experiences. These, first led to developing post-traumatic stress disorder, and then progressed into PNES (a health condition that is woefully unknown to most).  His...