Pathology of Lying, accusation, and swindling Part 1

Pathology of Lying, Etc.

by William and Mary Healy.

PREFACE

Careful studies of offenders make group-types stand out with distinctness. Very little advancement in the treatment of delinquents or criminals can be expected if typical characteristics and their bearings are not understood. The group that our present work concerns itself with is comparatively little known, although cases belonging to it, when met, attract much attention. It is to all who should be acquainted with these striking mental and moral vagaries, particularly in their forensic and psychological significances, that our essay is addressed. In some cases vital for the administration of justice, an understanding of the types of personality and of behavior here under discussion is a prime necessity.

The whole study of characterology or the motivation of conduct is extremely new, and there are many indications of immense values in uncovered fields. Some appreciation of this fact may be gained from the following pages which show the possibility of tracing one form of behavior to its source.

We have laid under contribution practically the entire literature on the subject, almost none of which is in English, and also the thorough-going longitudinal case studies made by the Juvenile Psychopathic Inst.i.tute of Chicago. In the latter material there was found much of value bearing upon the subject of lying, false accusation, and swindling of pathological character.

Our inst.i.tute, later taken over officially by the Juvenile Court of Cook County, was for five years maintained upon a foundation provided by Mrs. W. F. Dummer.

WILLIAM HEALY MARY TENNEY HEALY

WINNETKA, ILL.

June, 1915.

PATHOLOGICAL LYING, ACCUSATION, AND SWINDLING

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Through comparison of the literature on pathological lying with our own extensive material we are led to perceive the insistent necessity for closer definition of the subject than has been heretofore offered. Reasons for excluding types earlier described as pathological liars will be found throughout our work. Better definition goes hand in hand with better understanding, and it is only natural that formal, detailed contemplation of the subject should lead to seeing new lines of demarcation.

Definition: Pathological lying is falsification entirely disproportionate to any discernible end in view, engaged in by a person who, at the time of observation, cannot definitely be declared insane, feebleminded, or epileptic. Such lying rarely, if ever, centers about a single event; although exhibited in very occasional cases for a short time, it manifests itself most frequently by far over a period of years, or even a life time.

It represents a trait rather than an episode. Extensive, very complicated fabrications may be evolved. This has led to the synonyms:--mythomania; pseudologia phantastica.

It is true that in the previous literature, under the head of pathological liars, cases of epilepsy, insanity, and mental defect have been cited, but that is misleading. A clear terminology should be adopted. The pathological liar forms a species by himself and as such does not necessarily belong to any of these larger cla.s.ses. It is, of course, scientifically permissible, as well as practically valuable, to speak of the epileptic or the otherwise abnormal person through his disease engaging in pathological lying, but the main cla.s.sification of an individual should be decided by the main abnormal condition.

A good definition of pathological accusation follows the above lines. It is false accusation indulged in apart from any obvious purpose. Like the swindling of pathological liars, it appears objectively more pernicious than the lying, but it is an expression of the same tendency. The most striking form of this type of conduct is, of course, self-accusation. Mendacious self- impeachment seems especially convincing of abnormality. Such falsification not infrequently is episodic.

The inclusion of swindling in our discussion is due to the natural evolution of this type of conduct from pathological lying. Swindling itself could hardly be called a pathological phenomenon, since it is readily explicable by the fact that it is entered into for reasons of tangible gain, but when it is the product of the traits shown by a pathological liar it, just as the lying itself, is a part of the pathological picture. It is the most concrete expression of the individual's tendencies.

This has been agreed to by several writers, for all have found it easy to trace the development of one form of behavior into the other. As Wulffen says, ''Die Gabe zu Schwindeln ist eine 'l.u.s.t am Fabulieren.' '' Over and over again we have observed the phenomenon as the pathological liar gradually developed the tendency to swindle.

Notwithstanding the grave and sensational social issues which arise out of pathological lying, accusation, and swindling, there is very little acquaintance with the characteristics of cases showing this type of behavior, even by the people most likely to meet the problems presented. Lawyers, or other professional specialists have slight knowledge of the subject. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the pathological lying does not follow the usual lines of abnormal human behavior, unless it be among the insane where other symptoms proclaim the true nature of the case. Another reason for the slight acquaintance with the subject is the fact that almost nothing has been written on it in English.

The important part which behavior of this type sometimes plays in court work is witnessed to by the records of our own cases as well as those cited in the previous literature. The legal issues presented by pathological lying may be exceedingly costly. These facts make it important that the well-equipped lawyer, as well as the student of abnormal psychology, be familiar with the specific, related facts. For such students the cardinal point of recognition of this cla.s.s of conduct may at once be stated to be its apparent baselessness.

The only method by which good understanding may be obtained of the types of personality and mentality involved in pathological lying, accusation, and swindling, as well as of the genetics of these tendencies, is by the detailed reading of typical case histories. In this fact is found the reason for the presentation of this monograph. Appreciation of the nature of the phenomena can only be obtained through acquaintance with an entire career.

Any of us may be confronted by fabrications so consistent as to leave at one or several interviews the impression of truth.

Our selection of literature to summarize needs no explanation.

We have simply taken all that we could find which specifically bears on the problem. Lying, in general, especially as a form of delinquency, has received attention at the hands of some authors, notably Ferriani[1] and Duprat.[2] The falsifications and phantasies of children and adolescents have been dealt with by Stanley Hall.[3] None of these goes into the important, narrower field with which we are here concerned. The foreign literature is vitally important in its opening up of the subject, but from the standpoint of modern psychopathology it does not adequately cover the ground.

[1] Ferriani, Lino, ''L'Enfance criminelle.'' Milan, 1894.

(Trans. Minderjahrige Verbrecher. Berlin, 1896.)

[2] Duprat, G.-L., ''Le mensonge.'' Alcan, Paris, 1903.

[3] Hall, G. Stanley, ''Children's Lies.'' Amer. Journal of Psychology, Jan. 1890; pp. 59-70.

The fabrications, often quite clever, of the clearly insane, which in earlier literature are confounded with pathological lying, we have discriminated against as not being profitable for us to discuss here, while not denying, however, the possibility in some instances of lies coexisting with actual delusions. We well remember a patient, a brilliant conversationalist and letter writer, but an absolutely frank case of paranoia, whom we had not seen for a period during which she had concocted a new set of notions involving even her own claim to royal blood, confronting us with a merry, significant smile and the remark, ''You don't believe my new stories, do you?''

A short statement on the relation of lying to delinquency may be of interest here. Ferriani's discussion[4] of the lying of 500 condemned juvenile offenders, with cla.s.sification of their lies, ranging from self-defense, weakness, and fancy, to n.o.bility of purpose, does not include our field. Nor does he leave much room for appreciation of the fact we very definitely have observed, namely, that plenty of young offenders are robust speakers of the truth. Our a.n.a.lysis[5] of the delinquencies of 1000 young repeated offenders carefully studied by us does not tell the proportion of truth tellers as distinguished from liars, but it does give the number in which lying was a notable and excessive trait. The total number of males studied was 694, of females 306. Ages ranged from 6 to 22; average about 16 years.

[4] loc. cit.

[5] Vide p. 140, in chapter on Statistics, William Healy, ''The Individual Delinquent.'' Little, Brown, and Co. Boston, 1915.

MALES FEMALES

Lying--counted only when excessive and a 104 80 notorious characteristic of the individual, (15%) (26%)

False accusations--only recorded when of an 5 16 excessive and dangerous sort, (.7%) (5%)

The exact number of pathological liars is not determinable in our series because of the shading of this lying into other types. It would be safe to say that 8 or 10 of the 1000 were genuine cases of pathological lying according to our definition, that 5 more engaged in pathological false accusations without a notorious career in other kinds of lying. Examples of borderline mental cases showing fantastic lying and accusations are given in our special chapter. Some of the cases of pathological lying given in this work do not belong to the series of 1000 cases a.n.a.lyzed for statistical purposes. The extraordinary number of times several of these individuals appeared in court (resembling in this respect the European case histories) shows that the total amount of trouble caused by this cla.s.s is not in the least represented by their numerical proportion among offenders.

We have purposely limited our own material for presentation.

Here, as elsewhere, we insist on the value of genetics and consequently have busied ourselves at length with those cases where we could gain something like an adequate conception of the antecedents in family and developmental histories and where some measure of the psychogenetic features could be taken. Cases of older individuals with their prolonged and often picturesque careers, equivalent to those recounted in European literature, we have left strictly alone. One ever finds that the older the individual the less one can learn satisfactorily of beginnings of tendencies, just on account of the unreliability of the princ.i.p.al actor in the drama. The cases of older swindlers at first sight seem to offer much for the student of criminalistics, if only for purely descriptive purposes, but in the literature we have failed to find any satisfactory studies of the formative years of such careers. By taking instances of younger pathological liars, such as we have studied, the natural progress into swindling can be readily seen.

In court work we have been brought face to face with many cases of false accusation and, of course, with plenty of the usual kind of lying. Where either of these has been entered into by way of revenge or in belief that it would aid in getting out of trouble, no further attention has been paid to it from the standpoint of pathological lying. Our acquaintance with some professional criminals, particularly of the sneak-thief or pick-pocket cla.s.s, has taught us that living conditions for the individual may be founded on whole careers of misrepresentation and lies--for very understandable reasons. Self-accusations may sometimes be evolved with the idea of gaining directly practical results, as when a lover or a comrade is shielded, or when there is danger of a larger crime being fastened on the self-incriminator.

In selection and treatment of our material we have confined ourselves as closely as possible to the definition first given in this chapter--a definition that after some years of observation we found could be made and held to. While we would not deny that some of our cases may eventually find their way into an insane hospital, still none of them, except some we have enumerated under the name of border-line types, has so far shown any indication of this. That some of our cases have more or less recovered from a strongly-marked and prolonged inclination to falsify is a fact of great importance for treatment and prognosis.

We see neither reason for including insane cases nor for overlapping the already used cla.s.sifications which are based on more vital facts than the symptom of lying. Our use of abnormal cases in our chapter, ''Ill.u.s.trations of Border-Line Types,''

will be perfectly clear to those who read these cases. They represent the material not easily diagnosed, sometimes after long observation by professional people, or else they are clearly abnormal individuals who, by the possession of certain capacities, manage to keep their heads well above the level of social incompetency as judged by the world at large.

We have introduced only the cases where we have had ample proof that the individual had been given to excessive lying of our peculiar type. In the court room and working with delinquents outside the court, it is in rare instances totally impossible to know where the truth finally rests; such have been left out.

Then, too, we omit cases in which false accusations have about them the shadow of even a suspicion of vindictiveness. False accusations of young children against parents would hardly seem to have such a basis, and yet in some instances this fact has come out clearly. Grudge-formation on the part of young individuals has all through our work been one of the extraordinary findings; capacity for it varies tremendously in different individuals.

Several forms of excessive lying, particularly those practised by children and adolescents, are not discussed by us because they are largely age phenomena and only verge upon the pathological as they are carried over into wider fields of conduct. The fantasies of children, and the almost obsessional lying in some young adolescents, too, we avoid. There is much shading of typical pathological lying into, on the one hand, the really insane types, and, on the other hand, into the lying which is to be explained by quite normal reactions or where the tendency to mendacity is only partially developed.

It has been a matter of no small interest to us that in planning this monograph we conceived it necessary to consider part of our material under the head of episodic pathological lying and that later we had to omit this chapter. Surely there had been cases--so it seemed to us at first--where purposeless lying had been indulged in for a comparatively short time, particularly during the adolescent period, without expression of a prevaricating tendency before or after this time. When we came to review our material with this chapter in mind we found no sufficient verification of the fact that there was any such thing as episodic pathological lying, apart from peculiar manifestations in cases of epilepsy, hysteria, and other mental abnormalities. A short career of extensive lying, not unfrequently met with in work for juvenile courts and other social agencies, seems, judging from our material, to be always so mixed up with other delinquencies or unfortunate s.e.x experiences that the lying, after all, cannot be regarded as purposeless. It is indulged in most often in an attempt to disguise undesirable truths. That false accusations and even self-accusations are engaged in for the same purpose goes without saying. The girl who donned man's clothes, left home and lived for months a life of lies was seeking an adventure which would offset intolerable home conditions. The young woman who after seeing something of the pleasures of the world was placed in a strict religious home where she told exaggerated stories about her own bad behavior, was endeavoring to get more freedom elsewhere. A young fellow whom we found to be a most persistent and consistent liar was discovered to have been already well schooled in the art of professional criminalistic self-protection. So it has gone. Investigation of each of these episodic cases has shown the fabrications to emanate either from a distinctly abnormal personality or to partake of a character which rules them out of the realm of pathological lying. In our cases of temporary adolescent psychoses lying was rarely found a puzzling feature; the basic nature of the case was too easily discoverable.

A fair question to ask at this point is whether pathological lying is ever found to be the only delinquency of the given individual. We should hesitate to deny the possibility of its being the sole offense, but in our study of a long list of cases, and after review of those reported by other authors, it seems practically impossible to find a case of this. The tendencies soon carry the person over to the production of other delinquencies, and if these do not come in the category of punishable offenses, at least, through the trouble and suffering caused others, they are to be regarded essentially as misconduct.

The reverse of the above question deserves a word or two of attention; are there marked cases of delinquency which do not show lying? Surveying the figures of Ferriani[6] who enumerated thousands of lies, belonging to his nine cla.s.ses of prevarications, which a group of 500 young offenders indulged in, one would think that all delinquents are liars many times over.

But as a matter of fact we have been profoundly astonished to discover that a considerable percentage of the cases we have studied, even of repeated offenders, have proved notably truthful. Occasionally the very person who will engage in a major form of delinquency will hesitate to lie. Our experience shows this to be less true, however, of s.e.x delinquency than perhaps of any other. This statement is based on general observations; the accurate correlations have not been worked up.