wenty women and ten men with Non-Epileptic Attack Disorder (NEAD) were matched by age and gender with an epilepsy-and a healthy-control group. In response to clinical and research evidence of a relationship between NEAD and the experience of stress, it was hypothesised that people with NEAD would perceive their ongoing lives as more stressful, and use more avoidant and distancing coping, and less problem focussed coping, than people in the two control groups. Using the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck and Mermelstein, 1983) and the Ways of Coping -revised version (Folkman and Lazarus, 1988) the study found that people with NEAD (1) perceived their ongoing lives as significantly more stressful, (2) were significantly more likely to use use escape-avoidant coping and (3) were significantly less likely to use planful problem solving coping than healthy controls. People with NEAD were similar in their level of use of distancing coping to epilepsy controls, who scored significantly higher on this variable than their healthy counterparts. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale (Zigmond and Snaith, 1983) was intended as a control measure, and data revealed a significant elevation in depression and anxiety in the NEAD group over the healthy control group. However, because a statistical assumption was violated, HAD data were not used to covary. The study findings indicate that people with NEAD experience lives as stressful as do people with a debilitating neurological disorder, and are likely to employ maladative coping responses. Implications for diagnosis, intervention and future research are discussed.