The occurrence of unpredictable and often unavoidable aversive seizures in epilepsy bears a striking resemblance to the conditions known to induce learned helplessness. Additionally, depression and other characteristics associated with helplessness seem to occur more frequently among persons with epilepsy. Data from a national survey of individuals having epilepsy (N=286) suggest that certain seizure experiences may contribute to a sense of helplessness and that this, in turn, may influence health related behaviors. However, the proportions of explained variance in each of these relationships, while statistically significant, was far less than the proportion which remained unexplained. Results indicate that social support may either mitigate against the development of learned helplessness or serve to disrupt existing helplessness. (Author/KMF)