Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic PsychologyHealy, William
Science
Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology
Healy, William
Criminal psychology; Swindlers and swindling
We keep our border-line cases separate in order to emphasize that
pathological lying by an insane person does not make a
pathological liar in the true sense. We should hesitate,
however, to give in legal form a verdict of insanity in several
of these border-line cases we cite--they are very difficult to
classify, and the question of responsibility called for sometimes
in court work is unanswerable. Keeping even these mild cases
away from our others serves, however, to lessen confusion; we
need in this subject to conserve all the clearness possible by
holding to fundamental classifications and showing up vagueness
of definition where it does exist.
Perhaps we are over-particular in keeping such a case as No. 22
in this chapter. The commonsense observer would hardly regard
this girl as at all lacking, even in self-control. On the other
hand, for the purpose of illustrating the subject of pathological
accusation we have kept Case 17 in the previous chapter when it
clearly shows great resemblance to Case 26 and is in reality a
border-line type. Then, too, the swindler, Case 12, in some
respects belongs in this chapter.
We are hardly called on in this work to discuss the lying of drug
habitues, although they so frequently in their mental conditions
represent border-line types. They are often on the verge of a
psychosis as the result of their intoxications. Their lying is
mostly done for a purpose, to be sure, and hence much would not
come under the head of pathological lying, but occasionally
veracity is so much interfered with that there seems to be a
tendency to aimless lying. This class of cases, however, is
sufficiently discussed in special literature pertaining to the
subject.[24]
[24] Vide, ``Morphinism and Narcomanias From Other Drugs,'' by T.
D. Crothers. Philadelphia, Saunders and Co., 1902. Also Chapter
V, Stimulants and Narcotics, in ``The Individual Delinquent,'' by
William Healy Boston, Little, Brown, and Co., 1915.
CASE 22
Summary: A girl of 14, a most vigorous and vivacious
personality, had for a couple of years pursued a curiously active
career of misrepresentation, of obtaining goods under false
pretenses and running away from home even to distant places. Her
conversational ability was above normal; her lies were evolved
for the purpose of adapting herself to the peculiar circumstances
in which she frequently found herself. Her general conduct
combined with her abnormal psychomotor activity gave ground for
the diagnosis of constitutional excitement--hypomania.
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