IT IS OUR purpose in this brief paper to record some observations on the correlation of the frequency and intensity of epileptic seizures, the degree of abnormality of the electroencephalograms and the emotional state in several children. These correlations have become evident both to the psychiatrist (I. N. B.) and the electroencephalographer (C. L. Y.) independently and have resulted in the present collaboration.
If one were to arrange diseases in a scale ranging from those that are primarily impersonal disease processes, such as cancer, to those in which the interpersonal, emotional factors play a large part in the somatic manifestations of the disease, such as peptic ulcer, one would find great disagreement about where one could place epilepsy. Although all workers acknowledge the fact that strong emotion may act to precipitate convulsions, most investigators of epilepsy agree with Lennox,1 who states that epilepsy is a problem entirely of disordered neurophysiology