A Psychiatric Study of a Man Suffering from a Convulsive Disorder: Leo H. Bartemeier. Bulletin of The Menninger Clinic, VII, 1943, No. 2.

Bartemeier states that his clinical experience has led him to believe that cases which we classify as essential epilepsy possess, in addition to the hereditary predisposition, potent acquired factors which are not ordinarily uncovered but which are essential in producing the illness.

His case report deals with a patient who had been under treatment both medically and psychologically for sixteen years. Furthermore, Bartemeier had several interviews with the patient's mother with the result that important material was uncovered which otherwise might not have been. The patient's mother was a masculine personality whose hostility toward her son was manifested by her great fear of doing him injury. The patient in early childhood repressed his oral aggression and developed panic states in situations in which he feared being hurt. Bartemeier feels that by diminishing the patient's anxiety regarding his aggressive impulses the seizures became less frequent. The patient still takes phenobarbital but the intensity and frequency of his attacks have considerably diminished since psychotherapy.