About 30% of patients with epilepsy have some kind of psychiatric symptom (Onuma, 2000). The Federal Commission for the Control of Epilepsy and Its Consequences (1978) found that around 52% have major emotional problems. This surpasses the incidence seen in individuals with known brain damage, such as cerebral palsy. Help from mental health specialists knowledgeable about epilepsy is not readily available.

Epilepsy in children results in an increased risk for behavioral, emotional, psychiatric, and social impairments, occurring at a higher frequency than in people with other chronic illnesses, than in people who are visually or hearing handicapped, and much higher than in healthy children (Smith et al., 2002). Psychiatric disorders occur in 5–10% of the general pediatric population, 16% of those with chronic medical disorders, 29% of children with idiopathic epilepsy, and 58% of symptomatic epilepsy (Rutter et al., 1970; Connolly et al., 1984). This increased incidence is seen in both newly diagnosed and chronic epilepsy (Hoare, 1984). Various studies show that 21–27% of children with epilepsy have behavior disturbances. The frequency is increased if the epilepsy is complicated by other neurologic problems (Holdsworth & Whitmore, 1974; Mellor & Lowit, 1977). Teachers report a 21% incidence of deviant behaviors, such as aggressive, objectionable, truculent, spiteful, bullying, and attention-seeking behaviors (Holdsworth & Whitmore, 1974). Anxiety and depression a prominent in epileptic children with family functioning variables found to be influential (Ettinger et al., 1998).