Pathology of Lying [47]
The curious thing to the family is that Janet seems to have little shrewdness in lying; of normal ability in other things, she seems to have the mind of a child in this. Very many deceptions are discovered in short order, but even then the girl will sometimes argue at length that what she has said was really the truth. The parents insist she must know that she is lying, but her anomalous behavior has been so excessive that they have long felt she should be studied by a psychiatrist. Her mother asserts there is some periodicity in Janet's tendencies. She maintains she has noticed that most of her lies are told in the two or three days preceding menstruation. (This was certainly not true during the period we observed the girl.) The parents are sure there has never been any particular mental shock, and the mother has always felt that Janet was particularly free from contamination by bad children. At times she seems to realize her own bad behavior, and not long ago said she would become a nun, for in the tranquil life of the convent her tendency to lying would not be stimulated.
Further inquiry brought out the fact that it was true, as Janet stated, that in her high school course she became nervous to the extent of jerking and twitching, and that also for a time she stuttered. Their physician said, however, that there was no definite nervous disease.
As a young child the parents never thought this girl in any way different from the rest of the family. As she grew older she has been regarded as physically the most robust, but, as she stated to us, she has done the poorest intellectual work and that has often been a matter of family comment. The other children are careful truth tellers.
The type of Janet's lying has been not only in the form of falsifications about matters which directly concerned herself, but also involved extensive manufacture of long stories, phantasies. Meeting people she might give them extensive accounts of the wealth and importance of her own family. She once spread the report that her sister was married and living in a fine home close by, giving many elaborate details of the new household. Such stories naturally caused much family embarrassment. Then she worked up an imaginary entertainment and gave invitations to her brothers and sister at the request of a pretended hostess. Just before the event she, simulating the hostess, telephoned that an accident had taken place and the party would not be given. An extremely delicate situation arose because she alleged a certain young man wanted to marry her. The truth of her assertions in this matter never was investigated. The parents felt it quite impossible to go to the young man about the facts on account of the danger of exposing their daughter. They were long embarrassed by the extent to which she kept this affair going, but it finally was dropped without any social scandal occurring. In this and other affairs the family situation was at times unbearable because of the possibility that there might be some truth underlying the girl's statements. As the years went on Janet, of course, suffered from her loss of reputation, but still continued her practices of lying. In the two years before she left home she worked as a clerk. Previously she had held two or three situations and was reported to give good satisfaction in her work, but something would always come up about money matters, or other things, which would finally give rise to trouble. It is not known that she ever really took any money except the last time when she ran away and took a considerable sum from her parents.
A period of extensive untruthfulness and deception occurred before she left home. Janet represented to her parents that she was working at a certain place after she had left. She got into some mix-up about money matters, the rights of which never were straightened out. As usual, the affair was too complicated to be understood by anything short of a prolonged investigation. After things had come to this pass and her parents hardly knew what to do with
Further inquiry brought out the fact that it was true, as Janet stated, that in her high school course she became nervous to the extent of jerking and twitching, and that also for a time she stuttered. Their physician said, however, that there was no definite nervous disease.
As a young child the parents never thought this girl in any way different from the rest of the family. As she grew older she has been regarded as physically the most robust, but, as she stated to us, she has done the poorest intellectual work and that has often been a matter of family comment. The other children are careful truth tellers.
The type of Janet's lying has been not only in the form of falsifications about matters which directly concerned herself, but also involved extensive manufacture of long stories, phantasies. Meeting people she might give them extensive accounts of the wealth and importance of her own family. She once spread the report that her sister was married and living in a fine home close by, giving many elaborate details of the new household. Such stories naturally caused much family embarrassment. Then she worked up an imaginary entertainment and gave invitations to her brothers and sister at the request of a pretended hostess. Just before the event she, simulating the hostess, telephoned that an accident had taken place and the party would not be given. An extremely delicate situation arose because she alleged a certain young man wanted to marry her. The truth of her assertions in this matter never was investigated. The parents felt it quite impossible to go to the young man about the facts on account of the danger of exposing their daughter. They were long embarrassed by the extent to which she kept this affair going, but it finally was dropped without any social scandal occurring. In this and other affairs the family situation was at times unbearable because of the possibility that there might be some truth underlying the girl's statements. As the years went on Janet, of course, suffered from her loss of reputation, but still continued her practices of lying. In the two years before she left home she worked as a clerk. Previously she had held two or three situations and was reported to give good satisfaction in her work, but something would always come up about money matters, or other things, which would finally give rise to trouble. It is not known that she ever really took any money except the last time when she ran away and took a considerable sum from her parents.
A period of extensive untruthfulness and deception occurred before she left home. Janet represented to her parents that she was working at a certain place after she had left. She got into some mix-up about money matters, the rights of which never were straightened out. As usual, the affair was too complicated to be understood by anything short of a prolonged investigation. After things had come to this pass and her parents hardly knew what to do with