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
Passing from the above probably sufficient account of Gertrude's
falsifications as we knew them, we can take up her mental life
and traits. We have had to rely on the girl herself, as we
stated above, for many of these facts. She was brought up in
poor circumstances in a manufacturing town in England where there
had been many labor troubles. On two occasions when she was a
child she had seen encounters on the street, and during one riot
in their neighborhood her uncle was injured. She was
considerably frightened, but, so far as we could learn, this was
the only time in her life that she experienced any fear. Very
early she found that stories told to frighten her were untrue,
and what was said about the undesirability of certain children as
playmates proved false when she came to know them. She early
discovered that for self-satisfaction she would have to live a
mental life of her own. There were many things which she could
not discuss with her mother. In early childhood she was a great
reader of novels and spent many hours lying on the bed living an
imaginary life. She never discussed her ideas with any one.
Later she took to more serious reading, and of recent years she
has assailed many of the world's greatest problems. Particularly
she tells of the influence of Tolstoi's ``Kreutzer Sonata'' upon
her. During two years she has read it four times and it has
convinced her of the shams of character and that people lead dual
lives.
When she was about 9 or 10 years old she began talking with other
girls about sex problems and up to the present time has never
consulted any grown person about them. Her first information of
this kind was obtained from a crowd of girls who used
successfully to lie to their teachers and mothers to get out of
school work. Going further into the question of this hidden
knowledge of sex things, she tells us she has never worried much
about the things she has heard, but she has wondered a great deal
and they have often come up in her mind. She pursued the course
of asking many girls what they knew about this subject and then,
getting unsatisfactory answers, picked up what she could from
ordinary literature. Gertrude maintains that all her dwelling
upon sex affairs never aroused within her any specific desires.
(Gertrude is anything but a sensuous type and it may be that her
statement in this respect is true.) When she went to work she
fell in with girls who talked excessively about boys and sex
affairs, but at this time she had a mental world of her own and
so did not pay much attention to them. Gertrude talked much to
us of the possibility of her studying civil law, history,
economics, and so on--it is very clear that she has really dwelt
on the possibility of being a student of serious subjects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account