SELF-INDUCED TELEVISION EPILEPSY. A study of 2 patients

A unique method of deliberate self-induction of epileptic seizures, using the TV screen was encountered in two young women. Both suffered from highly photosensitive primary generalized corticoreticular orcentrencephalic epilepsy. Self-precipitation developed in periods of their life when spontaneous attacks no longer occurred. The seizures consisted of absence or generalized tonic clonic attacks. (The latter are almost never encountered in "hand waving", the most common form of self-induction reported in the literature.) The seizures were almost always induced in situations of guilt and/or frustation. They were followed by a feeling of tension relief rather than pleasure. Both patients were reluctant to discuss the circumstances under which self-induction occurred, and had difficulty in accepting psychotherapy or complying with antiepileptic medication. The similarity between the two young women was striking, and suggests that patients with this and other forms of self-induced epilepsy should be more fully studied from a psychiatric point of view.