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
There is altogether too
little general knowledge of this type of fact. The correlation
of the various epileptic mental states with pathological lying is
well recognized. In many of the cases cited by foreign writers
it has turned out that the individual was subject to epileptic
seizures. It is another illustration of the great variety of
epileptic phenomena. Something of a point has been made in the
literature heretofore that abnormalities of sexual life are
unduly correlated with the inclination to pathological lying, and
the conclusion is sometimes drawn, as by Stemmermann (loc. cit.
p. 90), that the two prove a degenerative tendency. Our material
would not tend to show this nearly as much as it would prove that
the psychical peculiarities follow on a profound upset caused by
unfortunate sex experiences.
A characteristic of pathological liars is undoubtedly a deep-set
egocentrism, as Risch states. If one goes over our cases it may
be seen that there is exhibited frequently in the individual an
undue amount of self-assertion. There is very little sympathy
for the concern of others, and, indeed, remarkably little
apperception of the opinions of others. How frequently the
imagery of the heroic role of the self recurs, and how frequently
it occupies a central stronghold is seen by the fact that nearly
all of our cases indubitably demonstrate the phenomenon.
Most of our cases have been studied by the application of a wide
range of tests. Indeed many of the individuals have been studied
over and over. It is beyond our point at present to go over the
separate findings because there is no evidence of a strong
correlation of any type of peculiarity, except the ones mentioned
here, with the pathological lying. Memory processes, for
instance, as ordinarily tested seem to be normally acute.
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