Epilepsy and psychiatry: Automatic psychic paroxysms

This study analyzes diverse psychic phenomena which, although always occurring with very characteristic clinical features, are sometimes diagnosed as epilepsy and sometimes as symptoms of different psychiatric disorders depending on the availability of an electroencephalogram. It is posited that these phenomena, whenever they are accompanied by the features characteristic of an epileptic consciousness (suddenness, automatic nature, great intensity and a strong sensation of strangeness) should be diagnosed as partial seizures with a psychic content, regardless of the availability of an EEG. The co-occurrence of these four clinical signs, which are relatively simple to objectivize, is a more reliable clinical criterion for diagnosis than a transcraneal electroencephalogram, which, as is known, is of little value in measuring the electrical activity of partial seizures. Moreover, an interpretation of this type makes it possible to reconcile scientific data from various neurosciences which thus far have seemed contradictory. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.