Psychosomatic Medicine 12:78-85 (1950)
© 1950 American Psychosomatic Society

Postconvulsive Psychopathologic States in Electric Convulsive Treatment

¹ New York Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College

In the postconvulsive state of electrically-induced convulsions a picture test was administered to 42 patients. The test consisted of four scenes and three Gestalt figures. The outstanding findings were a disturbance in correlation of isolated items and in the integration of the whole picture. When this disturbance was marked, the number of responses decreased and the recognition of Gestalt was affected. The same findings were obtained during a confusional episode of an epileptic patient, but not in schizophrenic and depressed thinking disorders leading to mild confusion. The findings in electrically-induced postconvulsive states correspond to some of the psychopathologic findings in epileptic disorders of consciousness of petit-mal and fugue states.