Pathology of Lying [53]
as the mother said. The girl was an extreme falsifier. As one observer puts it, ``she is not malicious in her lies, but just lies all the time and seems to try to make herself believe what she is saying.''
``I was in the 7th grade. Had a hundred jobs since then. Can't keep them because I'm so draggy. They want their money's worth--they want a more live girl. Sometimes I don't mind my mother and I get spunky. I feel lonesome and get mad. I feel tired. I can't please my mother no matter how hard I try. I'd like to go in some little home where I could have a chance.''
After a few days we found this girl in a decidedly good mood, wanting to be helped. She willingly entered into the analysis of her case with us and said she thought most of her trouble came because she was a day-dreamer. ``Sometimes I dream of things in the day time. I'll sit and stare and stare and think of different things. I'll think I'm doing them. I'll dream of things what I do and if I read a good play I'll dream of that. When I think of myself or somebody starts looking at me I'll stop dreaming.''
To another observer this girl gave a vivid description of how she felt after seeing pictures in the nickel shows. She states that love-making scenes lead her to practice self-abuse. This matter was taken up with her mother who stated that when this child was 7 years old she and the father had caught her at this habit and had severely reprimanded her and had thought she had stopped it. We were particularly interested to hear this because it was exactly the time the mother had specified as the beginning of her lying and general bad behavior. Going farther into the case with
the mother and the girl we ascertained that her bad sex habits had been continued more or less during all these years, and of late, particularly under the influence of picture shows, and of what some other girls were doing in the way of delinquency, the habit had become worse than ever. It was closely connected evidently with day-dreaming all these years and with the development of the fabricating tendency.
The mother who had been apparently so negligent of causes proved now to be a stalwart in this case and took the girl under her immediate charge. There was steady betterment. The girl went back and finished school and at the end of a year was reported as tremendously improved. There was no further complaint about her lying. We know that after this she long held a good position which any hint of untrustworthiness or lack of capacity would have lost her. Thus the cure of her sex habits brought about cessation of her extreme untruthfulness.
--------------------------------------------------------------- Bad sex habits long continued. Case 7. Heredity. (?) Father immoral Girl, age 16 yrs. and criminal. Home conditions. Lack of understanding and supervision. Delinquencies: Mentality: Excessive lying. Dull from physical Early truancy. causes. (Later Running away. quite normal.) ---------------------------------------------------------------
CASE 8
Summary: A thoroughly illustrative 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 passed over into swindling.
Gertrude S., who immigrated from England with her parents ten years previously, was seen by us when she
``I was in the 7th grade. Had a hundred jobs since then. Can't keep them because I'm so draggy. They want their money's worth--they want a more live girl. Sometimes I don't mind my mother and I get spunky. I feel lonesome and get mad. I feel tired. I can't please my mother no matter how hard I try. I'd like to go in some little home where I could have a chance.''
After a few days we found this girl in a decidedly good mood, wanting to be helped. She willingly entered into the analysis of her case with us and said she thought most of her trouble came because she was a day-dreamer. ``Sometimes I dream of things in the day time. I'll sit and stare and stare and think of different things. I'll think I'm doing them. I'll dream of things what I do and if I read a good play I'll dream of that. When I think of myself or somebody starts looking at me I'll stop dreaming.''
To another observer this girl gave a vivid description of how she felt after seeing pictures in the nickel shows. She states that love-making scenes lead her to practice self-abuse. This matter was taken up with her mother who stated that when this child was 7 years old she and the father had caught her at this habit and had severely reprimanded her and had thought she had stopped it. We were particularly interested to hear this because it was exactly the time the mother had specified as the beginning of her lying and general bad behavior. Going farther into the case with
the mother and the girl we ascertained that her bad sex habits had been continued more or less during all these years, and of late, particularly under the influence of picture shows, and of what some other girls were doing in the way of delinquency, the habit had become worse than ever. It was closely connected evidently with day-dreaming all these years and with the development of the fabricating tendency.
The mother who had been apparently so negligent of causes proved now to be a stalwart in this case and took the girl under her immediate charge. There was steady betterment. The girl went back and finished school and at the end of a year was reported as tremendously improved. There was no further complaint about her lying. We know that after this she long held a good position which any hint of untrustworthiness or lack of capacity would have lost her. Thus the cure of her sex habits brought about cessation of her extreme untruthfulness.
--------------------------------------------------------------- Bad sex habits long continued. Case 7. Heredity. (?) Father immoral Girl, age 16 yrs. and criminal. Home conditions. Lack of understanding and supervision. Delinquencies: Mentality: Excessive lying. Dull from physical Early truancy. causes. (Later Running away. quite normal.) ---------------------------------------------------------------
CASE 8
Summary: A thoroughly illustrative 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 passed over into swindling.
Gertrude S., who immigrated from England with her parents ten years previously, was seen by us when she