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
The lying, as in all these cases, seemed undertaken sometimes for
the advantages which thereby might accrue. On the other hand, at
times the falsification seemed to have no relation to personal
advantages. Indeed, this girl had experience, many times
repeated, that her lying very quickly resulted in suffering to
her. There were aspects of her falsifications which made it seem
as if there was pleasure in the mere manufacture of the stories
themselves and in the living, even for a short time, in the
situations which she had created out of her imagination and
communicated to others. Frequently there seemed to be an
unwillingness on her part to face the true facts of existence.
In her representation of things as different from what they
really were she seemed to show even the desire for
self-deception. Another point: no student of cases of this kind
should allow himself to forget the potency of habit formation.
There can be little doubt but that a large share of this girl's
conduct was the result of her well developed and long maintained
tendency to trim the facts.
As far as we were able to determine, and we undoubtedly got at
the essential facts, this girl's falsifying trait was based on
the following: The fact that she came of neuropathic stock would
make us think that she possibly inherited an unstable mental
make-up. To be sure, the only evidence of it was in this
anomalous characteristic of hers, namely, her pathological lying.
She seemed sound in her nervous makeup. The idea that the
grandmother passed on as inheritance her prevaricating traits is
open to discussion, but we have seen that environmental
influences from this source may have been the only effect, if
there was any at all. Very important in this case, without any
doubt, is the early sex teaching, its repression and the mental
conflict about it for years, and then the reintroduction into the
subject just before puberty. Probably this is the vital point of
the girl's whole career. The success she early achieved in
deceiving her mother, not by denials, but by the elaboration of
imaginary situations, has been the chief determinant of her
unfortunate behavior. Added to that was the formation of a habit
and of an attitude towards life in which the stern realities were
evaded by the interposition of unrealities. Even the affair of
the imaginary social gathering can be conceived in this light,
for evidently she and her family were not engaged then in social
affairs and the preparation for a gay event would for a time be a
source of excitement and pleasure. Her autoeroticism may have
helped towards the production of phantasies and the general
tendency to evasion of the realities of life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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