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
Our psychological observations were important beyond the giving
of formal tests. We found her to be a fluent and remarkably
logical and coherent conversationalist. Her choice of words was
unusually good. Questioned about this she said she had always
made it a point to cultivate a vocabulary and was particularly
fond of the use of correct English. (This was all the more
interesting because we later knew that she had been living
recently with somewhat illiterate people and that her original
home offered her very little in the way of educational
advantages.) Inez told us that she had earlier carried her
desire for self-expression in language to the point of writing
stories and plays, but we were never able to get her to do
anything of the kind for us. One of her constant pleas was that
she might get the chance to become a well-trained teacher of
English. Her letters never showed the same skill with English
that her conversation denoted, but her meagre education probably
accounted for this.
Characteristic of Inez, also, is her intense egoism and her
abundant self-assertion under all circumstances. It often seemed
to us as if for her the world revolved, with passing show, around
a pivot from which she regarded it as existing only for what it
meant for her career. These qualities have led to her
statements, and perhaps to the actual feelings, that she was the
aggrieved one, and had been badly treated on many occasions.
This seemed to reach almost paranoidal heights at times, and yet,
before passing judgment on this, one should be in position to
know, what probably will never be known, namely, the actual facts
of her earliest treatment. Occasionally Inez showed most
unreasonable bad temper and obstinacy. This only came out when
she was asked to do things which she considered occupationally
beneath her. In general she felt herself much above the ordinary
run of people. When she could be patronizing, as with children,
she acted quite the grand lady. Indeed, in asserting herself on
numerous occasions she has assumed just this attitude, which is
all the more strange because our further information shows that
it was not justified by any social station which her family ever
held.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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