Psychosomatic Medicine 25:441-449 (1963)
© 1963 American Psychosomatic Society

The Emotionally Disturbed Child with a Convulsive Disorder

¹ Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich

Children who had both an emotional and convulsive disorder have been studied to determine the relationship between the emotional disturbance and the convulsive disorder. It was found that in some cases the emotional disturbance contributed to the convulsive disorder, or they may have contributed to each other in the same case, or the convulsive disorder may have functioned as a cause of or may have produced a relief from the emotional disturbance. In the cases studied there was a wide variety of psychodynamic constellations in the patients as well as in their family interrelationships. The psychodynamic meaning and defensive uses of the convulsive disorder may be complex and crucial to the personality functioning. The frequency of the seizures was found to be dependent on the psychodynamics in some cases.