psychogenic non-epileptic seizures or PNES

I am just reading the book by Suzanne O'Sullivan, Is it All in Your Head? I just finished chapter 2 about Pauline. Pauline experienced many symptoms that lead her to the hospital where doctors could not find what was wrong. Eventually she has convulsions and goes in for EEG monitoring. O'Sullivan does a wonderful job of explaining Pauline's non-epileptic seizures, and describes the family's and doctor's challenges when trying to understand and communicate what is happening. O'Sullivan uses the term "dissociation" to describe a state where the conscious mind seperates from what is happening around you. "That detachment means that one part of you doesn't know what the other is doing. But it's not deliberate. You cannot make yourself unconscious any more than I can deliberately blush or produce tears." I'm not sure if it would be correct to call all PNES "dissociation" but maybe her writing will help some people understand what it is about. It has helped me. Pauline and her family are quite upset that O'Sullivan appears to suggest her psychogenic seizures are not real. O'Sullivan writes, "The seizures are real. The cause only helps to indicate a treatment." Also later in the chapter she writes that, "It is not necessarily the greatest suffering that receives the greatest consideration and sympathy...Psychiatric disorders manifesting as physical disease are at the very bottom" of the pile of recognition. My understanding of PNES has improved since reading this chapter. I would add that I think much of the confusion about PNES would be settled if people understood that there is a difference between seizure and epilepsy. Seizures are a symptom which can occur without having epilepsy, the neurological condition.