Pathology of Lying, accusation, and swindling Part 9

CASE 8

Summary: A thoroughly ill.u.s.trative case of long continued, excessive pathological lying on the part of a very bright girl, now 17 years old. As this young woman has well known, her falsifications have many times militated against the fulfillment of her own desires and interests. In the face of clear apperception of her fault, the tendency to react to a situation by lying sometimes appears to be fairly imperative. The only ascertained bases of the tendency are her early reactions, unthwarted by parental control, followed by habit formation; all in an environment peculiarly favorable to deception. The lying pa.s.sed over into swindling.

Gertrude S., who immigrated from England with her parents ten years previously, was seen by us when she was 17, after she had been engaged for months in a career of misrepresentation which had led her case into the hands of several social agencies. Much difficulty was encountered because repeatedly when people had tried to help her she had led them astray in their investigations by telling ridiculously unnecessary falsehoods. Her parents came to see us and gradually we obtained a detailed and probably quite reliable family and developmental history. About the evolution of the young woman's mental life we have unfortunately had to rely much upon her own word. This has made our studies rather more unsatisfactory than in other cases where corroboration from parents was obtained. However, there is much that rings true and is of interest even in the unverifiable part of the study.

There is not much to be said about the physical examination; it was negative in most respects. She is of rather slight type; weight 110 lbs., height 5 ft. 1 in. Delicate features of mature type. Expression intelligent and decidedly refined for her social cla.s.s. Gynecological examination made by a specialist revealed nothing abnormal and no evidence of immorality.

Menstruation said to have taken place at 13 years and to be regular and not difficult.

In studying Gertrude's mental powers we gave a considerable range of tests and found her to be well up to the ordinary in ability.

She showed no remarkable ability in any direction, but gave an almost uniformly good performance on tests. Concerning her other mental traits and especially her range of information and reading more will be said later. No signs of aberration were discovered by any one.

The record on the ''Aussage'' picture test is as follows: She gave 16 items on free recital with considerable reference to functional details and with side comments as to who the little girl might be, and what the dog wanted, and so on. So far, this was the performance of a rational, quick-minded person. On questioning, 28 more items were added, but no less than 12 of these were incorrect--she evidently supplied freely from her imagination. Of the 7 suggestions which were offered she took 5.

Twice not only was the main suggestion accepted, but imaginary details were added. Naturally, this is a very unusual record from a normal person.

There is absolutely nothing of significance in the heredity, according to the accounts received by us. All the grandparents are still alive in the old country. They are small townspeople of good reputation. Epilepsy, insanity, and feeblemindedness are stoutly denied and are probably absent in near relatives. The father is a staunch citizen who feels keenly the disgrace of the present situation. He is a hard working clerk. We early learned the mother was not to be relied upon. Our best evidence of this came from Gertrude. She told us she had always been accustomed to hearing lies in her own household. According to the father his wife's falsifications are merely to shield the children and she only shows the ordinary deceit of woman. We have no history of this woman ever having indulged in elaborate fabrications and, in general, she is of thoroughly good reputation. In delicacy of feature the girl is her mother over again.

Gertrude's birth was comparatively easy after a normal pregnancy.

After a healthy first infancy she had an illness at 2 years which lasted for three or four months. The exact nature of this is not plain, but it was probably bronchitis with complications. There were no evidences of any involvement of the nervous system. She walked and talked early, at about 1 year of age. She has had no other serious illness in all her life and has had no convulsions.

None of the children has suffered from convulsions. Gertrude is one of five, all of whom are alive and well. In the last couple of years she has complained a little of headaches and some other minor troubles. It was typical of the family situation that after Gertrude had told us of a series of fainting spells a year previously, the mother corroborated her and, indeed, made them out even worse. But when the reliable father was consulted on the matter it turned out there had been no such fainting attacks, nor could they be verified by communication with a doctor who is said to have attended Gertrude. Unquestionably they never occurred. Gertrude went to school at the usual age, but on account of poverty and immigration missed many long periods.

However, at 14 she had gone through the 6th grade.

About Gertrude's moral evolution we got very little aid from the parents or indeed from any others. It was very evident that from earliest childhood the girl had led a mental life of which her relatives knew nothing. Naturally, the mother gave us no account of the development of the tendency to lying; she merely glossed over her daughter's deceptions. The father, who had been obliged to work away from home much during Gertrude's early years, merely knew that at about the time she left school, namely 14 years, she began to lie excessively.

Anything like a complete account of Gertrude's prevarications, even as we know them, would require much s.p.a.ce. Some idea of their quant.i.ty and quality may be gained from the facts which we have gleaned from several sources. As might be supposed, Gertrude has established a reputation for falsification among many of her acquaintances. One friend tells how she represented herself as a half orphan, living with a hard-hearted step-mother.

Demanding promises of secrecy, Gertrude told this girl about a sum which she had with much difficulty gradually saved from her earnings in order to buy needed clothes. She asked the friend to come and help her make a selection. (Now the $20 or so that was spent Gertrude had stolen. By following her strange impulse she, with danger to herself, related a complicated story to this other girl who needed to know nothing of any part of the affair.) We have knowledge of scores of other fabrications which were detected. They include her alleged attendance at a course of lectures, her possession of a certain library card, and her working in various places. For many of these stories not a shadow of a reason appeared--especially during the time we have known her she has had every incentive to tell the truth about everything.

When by virtue of our court work we first knew the case, her lying centered about her other delinquencies, but even so its peculiar characteristics stood out sharply.

Gertrude was held to the adult court in the matter of the forgery of a check, which had been presented in an envelope to a bank teller by her and cashed as in the regular line of business between the bank and the firm for which she worked. Finding the girl had lied about her age, she was held, after the preliminary hearing, to the proper court. There, in turn, she did not appear at the right time, it being stated that she was sick in a hospital. One officer knew better and further investigation showed that Gertrude herself had come to the court, represented herself as her sister, and made the false statement about the illness. A telephone call the same afternoon to her house Gertrude answered.

Months of difficulty with the case began now. Her employer and all concerned experienced much difficulty in getting at the truth of the forgery, particularly through her clever implication of a man who had no easy task in freeing himself. Even after the girl confessed herself a confirmed liar she told more untruths which were peculiarly hard to unravel. Gertrude's firm bearing, her comparative refinement and her ability made every one unusually anxious to do her justice, and to save her from her own self-damaging tendencies.

During the continuance of the case, when all her interests demanded her good behavior, Gertrude could not refrain from what were almost orgies of lying and deceit. She well realized how this would count against her and, indeed, wrote letters of apology repeatedly for her misconduct.

''Let me come and tell you all. The time has come when things must stop, therefore I feel that I must talk to someone. I have lived a lie from the day I was born until now.''

After these letters she went on making false statements which could readily be checked up. Nothing is any more curious in Gertrude's case than the anomaly of her telling several of us who tried to help her that up to the time of the given interview she had not thoroughly realized how bad it was to lie, and how she now felt keenly that she must cease, while perhaps at the end of the very same interview a reaction to a new situation would produce more fabrications. Personally I have seen nothing any more suggestive of the typical toper's good resolutions and sudden falling from grace.

The story of the forged check was fancifully embellished and ever more details were supplied at pleasure. While this matter was under investigation Gertrude stayed away from home several nights, two of which have never been accounted for. She told fairly plausible stories about going out of town, but she first should have studied time tables to make them wholly convincing.

The mother, too, told that the girl had been out of town, but in this she was caught, for it was found that Gertrude had been part of the time with other relatives.

The main story of the check involved a man who worked in the same office. She stated that he made an immoral proposal to her on the basis of immunity from prosecution. After a couple of months Gertrude got round to confessing that she alone was responsible for the entire forgery and that her previous quite clever stories were not true. Her main confession was made in the form of a long letter written entirely aside from the influence of any one.

In this she also stated that she had stolen money and jewelry, which was known to have been taken. There was no untrue self- accusation, except that she may have exaggerated her own tendency to falsify at a very early age. Naturally, in such a case as this, even the latest confession must always be taken c.u.m grano salis.

Pa.s.sing 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sailed 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.x 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.

Very willingly this young woman entered into the problem of solving the genesis of her own tendencies. She repeatedly said that she, of all things, wanted to break herself of this. She maintains she can perceive no beginnings. It seems to her as if she has always been that way. She spoke at first of this crowd of girls who successfully lied to their parents and talked to her about s.e.x things, and we are inclined to believe that this really may have been the beginning, but later she affirms this was not the beginning and that her lying began in earlier childhood. All that she knows is that it has grown to be a habit and now ''when I speak it comes right out.'' After she has told a lie she never thinks about it again one way or another. Her conscience does not trouble her in the matter. She does not tell lies for what she gets out of it, nor does it give her any particular pleasure to fool people. She does not invent her stories, but at the time of talking to people she simply says untrue things without any thought beforehand and without any consideration afterward. To one officer she flung the challenge, ''Oh, I'm clever, you'll find that out.'' After months of effort and when it was clear that the girl for her own good must be given a course of training in an inst.i.tution she quite acquiesced in the wisdom of such procedure, after a few hours' rebellion.

It has been noted by many that one of Gertrude's outstanding traits is her lack of emotion. She never cries and only rarely does the semblance of a blush tinge her cheeks. She neither loves nor hates strongly. She seems remarkably calm under conditions where others storm. She says she never is frightened, that she never worries, or is sorry. She is well aware of her own ego; that she may be trespa.s.sing upon the rights of others never seems to enter her head. Certain simulations of physical ailments, which at times she showed, we could only interpret as part of her general tendency to misrepresent.

Our summary of the causative factors in this case, made, unfortunately, partly on the basis of this unreliable girl's testimony, offers the following explanation of her remarkable tendencies:

(a) There was early development of an inner life which dealt vividly in imaginary situations. This grew into a mental existence hidden entirely from the members of her family.

(b) There was early experience with successful lying on the part of others, and this as a main episode probably occurred at the time when the emotion natural to first knowledge of s.e.x life was present.

(e) There was frequent experience with the falsifications which were her mother's frailty.

(d) For her lying there were no parental disciplines or corrections at any time, so far as we have been able to learn.

(e) The young woman shows unusually little emotion, and only sporadically demonstrates conscience.

(f) There is unquestionably marked habit formation in the case.

--------------------------------------------------------------- Habit formation: Very strong. Case 8.

Lack of parental correction. Girl, age 17 years.

Early experience with lying.

Development of inner life: Imaginative and hidden.

Delinquencies: Excessive lying and misrepresentation.

False accusations.

Forging. Mentality: Stealing. Good ability.

CASE 9

Summary: A girl of 14 had been notoriously untruthful for years.

She had created much trouble by her petty false accusations, and her lying stood often in the way of her own satisfactions and advantages. a.n.a.lysis of the case shows the girl's dual moral and social experiences and tendencies, her inner conflicts about the same, and her remarkably vivid mental imagery-- all of which leads her to doubt sometimes concerning what is true and what is false.

A strange admixture of races, of religion, and of social and moral tendencies was brought out in the study of Amanda R. and of her family conditions. We were much helped in the study of this case, which has long been a source of many social difficulties, by the intelligence of certain relatives who knew well the family facts, and also by the good mental capacities of the girl herself.

Amanda is an orphan and has been living for years with relatives.

She has caused them and others, even those who have tried to help her, extreme annoyance on account of her quite unnecessary lies, her accusations, and some other delinquent tendencies. The main trouble all concede to be her falsifications, which vary from direct denials to elaborate stories invented without any seeming reason whatever. Reports on her conduct have come from a number of different sources. Neighbors have complained that she has come to them and borrowed money with the statement that her family was hard up. At school she stated for a time that she had come unprovided with lunch because her people were so poor, but it was ascertained that she had thrown away her lunch each day.

The lies which she told to the other school children were extraordinarily numerous and fertile; unfortunately they sometimes involved details about improper s.e.x experiences. A long story was made up about one of her relatives having committed suicide and was told to the school teachers and others.

She defamed the character of one of her aunts. To her pastor she told some outrageous falsehoods. A home for delinquent girls, where she was once placed on account of her general bad behavior, would not put up with her, so much trouble arose from her prevarications. She accused the very good people there of not treating her well because she was not of their race. All of the above is quite apart from the girl's own romantic stories which have been told in her family circle and have done no especial harm. Of these we had the best account from the girl herself.

An intelligent relative gave an account of the facts. Amanda has been tried in a number of households, but has been given up by everyone after a short period of trial. Her word is found so unreliable that in general she is regarded as thoroughly untrustworthy. This particular relative, who is most interested in her, tells us she thinks the girl is mentally peculiar. She states that in general her mind is both romantic and rambling.