I found one of my old posts on this subject, because, since I have TLE (Temporal Lobe Epilepsy), this has always interested me. I hope it is helpful.

I read Eve LaPlante's book Seized also, and was fascinated by Dr. Norman Geschwind's theory. From LaPlante's book, I learned about some of the character traits of Geschwind's Syndrome, with five of them being:

Hypergraphia [a lot of Writing],
Hyperreligiosity [a Strong belief in God],
Stickiness [an Overemotional attachment to others or "clinginess"],
Aggression; and
Altered sexualty [sometimes "Hyposexuality": no interest in sex].

Ellie gave a GREAT LINK to Eve La Plante's book Seized, because in that book there is a GREAT explanation, not only of Geschwind-Waxman's Syndrome, but also of Dr. Geschwind's earlier concerns.


From what I learned? Geschwind's Syndrome will be found with TLE (Temporal Lobe Epilepsy) (the subject of Eve LaPlante's book), though not all the time, and not necessarily all "5" character traits. And sometimes? Not at all.

I have Right Sided TLE, and the one trait that struck me the most was "Hypergraphia," the excessive writing. I've kept journals since I was in high school. I write for a living, now. Go figure... I don't keep them up so extensively anymore, except when I travel. Although the past several years (since my mom passed away) I started writing a LOT of stories. The wrtiting has proven to be very cathartic.

I think the hardest part with Neurologists "accepting" this theory is that Geschwind attempted to describe Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Patients as having a certain "personality" -- a "TLE Personality" -- characterized by these traits, right?

Doctors don't "go" for that stuff -- at least my Neuro/Epi sure doesn't -- even in the face of hard evidence. Of course, doctors often conveniently don't "look for" the evidence, you know? I mean, a Neuro will ask me "How do you feel." Doctors don't usually ask "Do you believe in a God?" or "Do you write extensively or keep journals?"

Of course, there is another reason that doctors do not want to "characterize" or "stereotype" patients with a set of personality traits simply because of a diagnosis of TLE.

Doctors quite wisely don't want to "stereotype" people with TLE, or people with any type of Epilepsy. The reason for this is because, at one time, people with epilepsy were simply put into insane asylums. (Scary, huh? )

We were FINALLY recognized as not having a "mental illness," so it was really controversial for Dr. Geschwind and his assistant to develop this theory when they did. His assistant, Dr. Waxman, developed this theory sometime in the 1950ies.

That's what I was trying to point out.

It would be a frightening thought to think of very good teachers and other professionals unable to practice their profession, because they were in Insane Asylums, which is how people who had Epilepsy had been treated. Now I KNOW that was a LONG time ago, but, nonetheless, the stigma lingered [lingers?]

So, as you can well imagine, Geschwind, for the time he was in (1950ies???) found himself to be one heck of a dilemma, huh?

However, the theory has always struck me as an interesting one.

Betty Anne