[Epilepsy, mourning and psychotherapy]

The authors, starts with the apparent generalized lack of sense, the non sense, about everything to do with epilepsy; he tries to understand the meaning of this excess of non sense. He first tries to find the possible utility for the psychic economy of the patient and his environment. Then, based on beginnings of meaning which do emerge, particularly at the time of the first crisis, he sketches the broad lines for a possible framework of psychotherapy; this is followed by a more theoretical discussion. This attempted synthesis is based in particular on the frequency of observations of the patient's identification with a double of his death. The author adopts for his purpose the concept of the crypt from which is derived the notion of the double of the self. Finally, a hypothesis is proposed which aims at understanding the mechanism of the constitution of this double, based on the family secret. To construct this hypothesis the author uses the comparison between real and imaginary doubles, trying to find in that the sense of the lack of sense.