Continuing the review from the last post of research from Melbourne, Australia on psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES), we have seen that there was no assessment of childhood stress in  their subjects (1).  This glaring omission meant that the opportunity to therapeutically address these issues in their patients was lost.  Consequently it is not surprising that the outcome in their subjects was poor.  In the 28% of their patients who returned a follow-up questionnaire (averaging four years later): (more…)

Continuing the review of the research from Melbourne in the last post (1), the huge flaw is that the paper fails to report on childhood stress experience in patients with PNES (psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, which is a form of stress illness in many cases).  Just how big a flaw is made clear in a paragraph from Dr Anna Luise Kirkengen’s latest book The Lived Experience of Violation: How Abused Children Become Unhealthy Adults (Zeta Books, 2010):

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One of the best recent research articles on a form of stress illness (1) has a huge flaw.  The study was done over ten years at the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia.  They evaluate people who have seizures that are difficult for their regular doctors to manage.  Among many other tests, patients have simultaneous video monitoring and EEG (brain wave) for five full days around the clock.  This test identified 221 adult patients who outwardly appeared to be having seizures but the EEG showed they were not true epilepsy.  These are called psychogenic (meaning “caused by a psychological process”) non-epileptic seizures (PNES).  In the few patients I have seen who had these they were a form of stress illness.  The patients are not deliberately pretending or faking, they are reacting to overwhelming life stresses.

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