Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:1311-1316
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Multiple personality and related dissociative phenomena in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy
L Schenk and D Bear
Many patients with temporal lobe epilepsy also experience dissociative
episodes. Three patients with multiple personality exhibited alterations in
speech pattern, personality, handedness, and sense of personal identity and
claimed amnesia for the dissociative episodes. Another 10 patients
identified alternative personalities or demons as motivators of ego-alien
behavior. Of clinic patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, 33% exhibited
some dissociative phenomena, which had no apparent association with
individual seizures but always followed the development of the seizure
disorder. The authors propose that intensified, dystonic affects,
characteristic of the interictal period in temporal lobe epilepsy, may
predispose some individuals to dissociative reactions.
