In the wake of Charcot, the “école de la Salpêtrière” has had a passion for grand mal seizures or grand hysterical attacks. At the time, hysteria did not boil down to the grand mal seizure, even if the latter represents an ideal heuristic model for a patient presentation that would have a lasting impact. The grand attacks are thus a clinical framework for studying hystero-epilepsy, opening the way to a psychopathological explanation. The heirs of the “école de la Salpêtrière”’s legacy each take pride in imposing a universal model of hysteria as seen from the point of view of its causes. If Babinski considers hysteria as being based on a purely psychogenic mechanism, it is within the realms of the subconscious or autosuggestion; the subject abandons himself to the symptom. Contrary to pithiatism, Freud and Breuer consider the seizure as a division of the contents of the conscience, attesting the return of an unconscious traumatic memory. This question, partly eclipsed by modern psychiatry, is resurfacing with a new clinical entity : The psychogenic nonepileptic seizure. Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) can be defined as paroxystic manifestations clinically resembling an epileptic seizure but relating to unconscious psychogenic processes. The clinical diagnosis is particularly difficult. Most patients suffering from PNES wrongly take an anticonvulsant treatment, which is not at all effective and frequently leads to adverse effects. To establish a diagnosis that discriminates between PNES and epilepsy an electroencephalograph coupled with a video recording is the primary paraclinical examination. The treatment of PNES is complex. Despite an affirmed diagnosis for the patient and joint monitoring by a specialist neurologist and psychiatrist, the prognosis remains guarded. We have searched for a phenomenal continuity between grand hysterical attacks, hystero-epilepsy and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures. Over the years, the diagnosis of epileptoid seizures has concerned a diagnosis through clinical then paraclinical elimination. References to hysteria can be found over the years and are currently being confused with dissociative and somatoform disorders. In agreement with ancient theories, the psycho-traumatic dimension of the epileptoid phenomenon has been shown again in recent epidemiological studies. As hysteria does not boil down to grand mal seizures, PNES is a group of clinical manifestations of heterogeneous etiology. Many authors consider PNES as neuronal non epileptic hyper-excitability with normal electroencephalograms, although other modern authors evoke recurrent dissociative disorders as the translation of a particular state of post-traumatic stress.