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A Comparison Between the Personality Changes in Certain Forms of Psychomotor and Grand-Mal Epilepsy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Per Kristianson*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Uppsala, Suartbäcksgatan 10, S-753 20 Uppsala, Sweden

Extract

Some controversy exists regarding the notion that personality disturbance is specifically related to temporal-lobe epilepsy. A number of investigators have found no psychometric or psychiatric differences between psychomotor epileptics with a temporal-lobe focus and non-temporal epileptics with ‘centrencephalic’ or diffuse epilepsy or jacksonian sensorimotor epilepsy. But it is possible that the ‘negative’ findings in these studies may be explained by the reported acute psychoses caused by changes in anti-epileptic medication, or by the use of groups that were too heterogeneous or institutionalized and the use of less well-defined psychiatric and psychological variables. However, Janz (1969) has described a more primary, homogeneous, common and not serious form of grand-mal epilepsy, ‘Aufwach’ epilepsy, with psychiatric and Rorschach-test characteristics of a kind different from the corresponding characteristics of ‘Schlaf’ grand-mal epilepsy and psychomotor epilepsy. Furthermore, Meier and French (1965) obtained certain results with the MMPI test for a group of psychomotor epileptics with bilateral EEG temporal-lobe abnormalities. A separate analysis of this group showed that the presence of independent bitemporal EEG abnormalities was associated with the most and highest scale elevations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1974 

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References

Janz, D. (1969) Die Epilepsien. Stuttgart: Georg Thieme Verlag.Google Scholar
Kristianson, P. (1970) A comparative study of two alcoholic groups and a control group. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 43, 161–75.Google Scholar
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Kristianson, P. A detailed comparative study of the MMPI profiles of two alcoholic groups. As yet unpublished.Google Scholar
Meier, M. J. & French, L. A. (1965) Some personality correlates of unilateral and bilateral EEG abnormalities in psychomotor epileptics. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 21, 39.Google Scholar
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