Identity of emotional triggers in epilepsy.

This communication describes a technique of stimulated recall and video replay which has reduced the frequency of seizures in five epileptic patients. Each of the patients had long standing partial epilepsy with complex symptomatology of the psychomotor type. It was generally acknowledged that emotional factors played an important role in their poor seizure control. Previous psychotherapeutic efforts had been without benefit because ictal amnesia had erased the memory of the stressful antecedent message-input which had triggered the seizures. Creation of empathetically stressful responses to presentation of audio and video tape recordings of specific problematic social interactions was sufficient to induce seizures in these patients. Video tape recording of the seizure and the antecedant events provided by means by which the patients could acquire otherwise unrecognized or forgotten information. Once equipped with the identity of the specific emotional trigger, the patient could avoid the kinds of events which might be expected to induce a seizure and be better able to cope with threatening environmental cues when encountered in the future.