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In his study on Dostoyevsky, (7) Freud concluded that epileptic seizures are somatically preconditioned and that they may be set off by any one of a number of psychic factors; for instance, fright. He said that inadequate mastery of psychic economy can activate a prearranged organic mechanism to discharge abnormal instinctual tension, the epileptic action serving as a release for masses of excitation not disposed of psychically. In the light of this theory, the seizure represents an archaic syndrome of discharge in convulsive motility, resembling an affective spell where the ego loses its normal control over movements.
In both the affective storm and the epileptic attack, a type of motility appears which bears some resemblance to the affective motility of a child. In the child, “motor reactions are employed to obviate quickly unmastered tension when anxiety, the inner danger signal, calls for them.” (23)
Many authors have pointed out an apparent regression to infantile levels in the epileptic seizure. Clark, for example, compared the convulsion, the loss of sphincter control, and the cry of the epileptic with the uncoordinated motions of the infant. (4) In the epileptic, instinctual tension and anxiety (Hendrick) also appear to be factors which may overwhelm the ego. They create a situation in which the attack, because of the inherent defect, can take place.