#pseudoseizures

You have a seizure cause you're stressed or anxious

Seizures are a stressful and scary experience, leading to more anxiety

Hello there,

Patients with psychogenic seizures (non-epileptic seizures) can’t control their seizures and really think they are having an epileptic seizure, so accusing them of faking it would be cruel and counterproductive. Psychogenic seizures can sometimes be a somatic manifestation of an underlying psychiatric condition. The patient is not faking it, although the seizures are not due to abnormal cortical activity, they are a manifestation of another psych pathology and the patient may not necessarily have control over it. And because I can’t stretch how real these can be; people have died due to car accidents caused by nonepileptic seizures. 

Psychogenic seizures are “fake seizures”, but the word “faking” implies “intentionally deceiving.” Fake seizures would be considered malingering. If the underlying motivation is some sort of secondary gain (ie: a homeless person doesn’t want to be discharged so they fake seizures to stay longer) these would not be considered psychogenic, but malingering.

Psychogenic seizures/seizure like activity could also be due to: Catatonia, Delirium, Conversion disorder (functional neurological symptom disorder), Factitious Disorder, Malingering. Only in the latter two is the person intentionally producing the symptoms.