Pathology of Lying, Etc.

W >> William and Mary Healy >> Pathology of Lying, Etc.

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Our ``psychological impressions,'' dictated by Dr. Bronner, state
that at first we found Emma very quiet and diffident, possibly
somewhat shy and timid. At best she did not talk freely, only in
monosyllables as a rule. She appears rather nervous. She says
she thinks of lots of things she does not speak of. Emma smiles
in friendly enough fashion, and later became more at ease, and
more talkative. She was rather deliberate in work with tests.
With concrete material she did better than with tasks more purely
mental. She succeeds eventually with nearly everything, but is
slow. She seems anxious to do well, but acts as if unable to
rouse herself to any great effort. She is quite inaccurate in
arithmetic, and only fair in other school studies. Emotions
normal. In many ways appears normally childish. Her interest in
fairy tales and in the type of make-believe plays in which she
engages with her younger sisters seems mixed with her wonderment
in regard to sex life. There is a distinct tendency to
day-dreaming.

In reviewing the results of tests the only peculiarities to be
noted are a definite weakness displayed in the powers of mental
representation and analysis (she failed on Test X, usually
readily done at 12 years), and a rather undue amount of
suggestibility and inaccuracy in response to the ``Aussage'' test
(Test VI). The latter, naturally-to-be-supposed important test
in a case where lying was a characteristic, showed a result that
belonged to the imaginative, inaccurate, and partially
suggestible type. Many details of the picture were recalled
correctly, but a few were manufactured to order, and 4 out of 7
suggestions were accepted.

About the general diagnosis of mentality there could be no doubt;
the girl had fair ability, but there had been poor educational
advantages on account of extremely defective vision. No signs of
mental aberration were discovered.

Our attempt to try to help Emma decide why she got into so much
difficulty resulted in a most convincing discovery of beginnings.
We found a keynote to the situation in asking her about the
companionship which the mother had said she had broken up. It
seems that Emma had for a year, quite clandestinely, been
familiar with this family. She apparently now desired to reveal
the results of the acquaintance. Long ago the older sister, at
present in a Reform School, boasted of her escapades with boys.
Emma states that she herself never talked of these topics with
her mother, who had said that girls who don't do such things
should not talk about them. But Tessie, the younger sister of
the delinquent girl, says many bad words about boys. These words
and ideas about them bother Emma much. They come up in her mind,
``sometimes at night and sometimes in the day.'' She even dreams
much about them and about boys. ``I seen the girls do bad things
with boys. It is in the dream, it was in the house, in the front
room on the floor.'' Emma says she never saw it in reality, but
Tessie had boys in their front room when she went there, and then
came running out when she heard Emma coming. She wonders just
what Tessie does. Boys never bother Emma, but all these ideas
bother her. ``Then I think that the boys are going to do it to
me.'' In school she cannot study for this reason. ``Sure, when
I start to study it comes up. I just think about what she tells
me, Tessie. She tells me she liked to do these things with
boys.''

This little girl in the couple of interviews we had with her gave
vent to much expression of all this which had perplexed her, and
she really seemed to want help. She was very willing to have her
mother told. She went on finally to say that the delinquent girl
had taught her long ago about masturbation and that she thinks of
it every night in bed. She can give no explanation of why she
runs away and why she falsely accused the man. She says it was
not true at all what she said about him. She thinks she would
behave better if she were less bothered about the things which
those girls taught her. Emma says she questioned a young woman
relative who did not tell her any more than her mother did.

Regarding her diversions Emma says that she likes reading,
especially fairy tales. She reads mostly Andersen's Fairy Tales.
She enjoys dressing up as a grown lady and playing make-believe.
She particularly likes to go to bed early and lie and imagine
things. She imagines sometimes that she is grown up and married
and has her own home and children.

The neglect, through ignorance, of the several genetic features
of Emma's case was quite clear. The mother was made acquainted
with the facts, which her little daughter then affirmed to her,
and she promised to alter conditions. We insisted on attention
to Emma's eyes and general physical conditions, on removal from
neighborhood association with these old companions, on the
necessity for motherly confidences, on watchfulness to break up
sex habits, and on the development of better mental interests.
Through relatives in the home town it seemed there was some
chance to get these remedial measures undertaken.

A year and a half later we can state that a certain number of our
suggestions were followed out. The mother gained a better
understanding of the case and there were some, although not
enough, environmental changes. The father's mental condition has
been much better, perhaps because he has largely refrained from
drink, and consequently family affairs are more stable. The girl
herself is said not to be doing perfectly either in school or
home life, but to be vastly improved. We have obtained no
definite statement concerning whether she now lies at all or not,
but it is sure that Emma has engaged in no more egregious types
of prevarications and in no more false accusations. Competent
observers think the case is fairly promising in its general moral
aspects if environmental conditions continue to improve.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Mental conflict. Case 14.
Improper sex teachings. Girl, age 13.
Bad companions.
Home conditions: Lack of understanding
and control.
Father alcoholic,
insane (?)
Defective vision.
Delinquencies: Mentality:
False accusations. Ability fair.
Runaway.
Obtaining money by false representations.
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CASE 15

Summary: Girl of 16, over a period of some weeks made extreme
accusations against several members of her family. She gave
detailed account of sex immorality, alleged drunkenness and
thieving, and an attack on her own life. She had herself, it was
found, begun delinquent tendencies. The family circumstances and
her clearly detailed account gave the color of possibility to her
accusations, but investigation proved some of them false, and all
of a sudden, after maintaining for long a most convincing
demeanor, she withdrew her allegations. Both before and since
this episode she has given no marked evidence of being a
falsifier.

We were asked to study this case by police officials who thought
perhaps the girl was the victim of some delusional state. She
appeared at the police station and informed them her adult
brother had been thieving from the place where he worked. She
lived with him. Investigation by detectives on the strength of
her convincingly given details proved his innocence. When the
brother appeared on the scene he said he had been intending to
report her on account of her being away from home. She herself
was then held in custody.

We found a girl in very good general physical condition. Well
developed in sex characteristics and a very mature type of face.
Outside of a somewhat enlarged thyroid and moderately defective
vision, we found nothing abnormal. Weight 114 lbs.; height 5 ft.
Notable was her strong features, deep set eyes, high, broad
forehead and sharp chin.

Our study of her on the mental side led us to denominate her as
having fair general ability. She had had poor educational
advantages. We noted much irregularity on work on tests. She
did comparatively poorly on anything that called for careful
attention and concentration. This was especially notable when
she was dealing with abstractions or situations to be mentally
represented. Although she could do arithmetic up to simple
division she made a bad failure in the continued process of
subtraction as given in the Kraepelin test of taking 8's from
100. In the work on the Code, Test XI, she found it altogether
impossible to keep her mind concentrated. In tests where
perceptions were largely brought into play she did very well. We
noticed that she was possessed of a very dramatic manner. She
sighed frequently as she worked. She was very nervous,
continually moving her hands and tapping the table. She was
quite satisfied with her superficial efforts. It was very
curious that we, as well as others, were able to note her
apparent sincere belief in her own statements about her family.
As she made them she looked the interviewer straight in the eyes;
there was not a hint of evasiveness.

Her result on the ``Aussage'' (Test VI) was very meager. She
only recalled 10 details of the picture. On cross- examination
she gave correctly 14 more items and was wrong on 3 of them. She
accepted only 2 out of 5 suggestions offered and these were the
most probable ones.

A full family history was never to be obtained. The best that we
came ultimately to know was that her father and mother had been
long dead and she had lived in institutions for years, then with
a relative who was not at all a good person, and then with her
brother and sister, whom she bitterly accused. These were people
in decidedly poor circumstances and living in very congested
quarters. Indeed, we were inclined to believe, finally, that
crowded housing conditions with the necessary unfortunate
familiarity with sex affairs and the like was largely responsible
for her trouble. A few months prior to these events she had
become acquainted with a girl who had drawn her into running away
from home a few nights. During her unsettled home life she had
seen a good deal of immorality in other houses, but had not been
immoral herself. Conditions of squalor surrounded the whole
situation.

Her accusations against her family as told to others, and
reiterated to us, involved the drunkenness of her own father and
mother. (We were never able to verify whether this charge
against her mother was true or not.) Then she went on to allege
extreme immorality on the part of her three sisters. She gave
these in the utmost detail. (There is little doubt but that one
of her sisters was rather free living before she was married.)
She constantly maintained that she was the only virtuous one in
the family and had withstood all advances. She then recounted
much personal abuse and cruel treatment, and accused the brother
and his wife of an attempt to poison her because they wanted her
out of the way.

Her story was told in such detail, was so well remembered from
time to time, and she presented such outward form of sincerity
that experienced people were led to believe there must be much in
what she said. On one occasion, under observation, she cried
nearly all of two days because one good woman would not believe
her statements. At least she said this was the reason of her
tears. Her general behavior during this period of observation
was perfect.

We found her hazy and somewhat incoherent about a number of the
details of her life, but she had lived under such varied
circumstances that this alone was not convincing of her
insincerity. When we met her brother we were very sure that at
least a part of her story was false. He seemed to be a very
decent fellow and was really interested in her. Several months
earlier he had trouble with her on account of her staying out
late at night, and had threatened her. Then there was no more
difficulty until her recent acquaintance with this other girl.
He stated that he had been obliged to scold her very severely,
and then finally she stayed away for five nights and wound up by
going to the police station and making the accusations against
him and the other members of the family. When the case came up
in court she stated she wished to go back to live with this
brother and admitted having continued misrepresentations about
him and the others in the family since her acquaintance with this
girl. It really was all false. She was placed under probation
and the case has been, except for environmental circumstances,
entirely successful. She is now a young married woman, and has
had no further delinquent record against her.

Our investigation of the causation showed perhaps self-
protection from punishment for her own behavior, but there was
apparently much mental conflict about sex affairs and she had a
very unfortunate acquaintance with such details, resulting
partly, as she acknowledged, from her peeping through keyholes
and so on. On account of her peculiar unreliability of statement
and many quiet and staring periods, seen while she was under
observation, we questioned whether she was not verging on
psychotic conditions. However, all this tendency seems to have
passed away.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Adolescent instability. Case 15.
Girl, 16 years.
Home conditions: Defective through poverty
and congestion.
Early sex experiences and mental conflict
about them.
Reaction to own delinquencies, self
protection phenomenon.
Heredity. Mentality:
Delinquencies: Fair ability, poor
False accusations. advantages.
---------------------------------------------------------------

CASE 16

Summary: A motherless girl of 9 1/2 years, following her
complaint of local symptoms, which proved to be due to vulvitis,
accused her father and brother of incest. She was a bright child
and normally affectionate, even towards these relatives. Her
father and brother were held in jail for several weeks, but were
dismissed at the trial because of the ascertained untruth of the
charges.

As causative factors of her false accusations our study showed
(a) her local irritation, (b) for which her father had treated
her, (c) prior crowded housing conditions with her father and
brother, (d) her lack of mother's control, (e) early and intimate
acquaintance with atrocious sex knowledge and sex habits, and (f)
recently becoming the center of interest in a group of friends
made through her statement of the vileness of family conditions.

We were requested to study this case by the judge of the court in
which the father and brother of Bessie M. were to be tried for
the crime of incest with her. At a preliminary hearing the judge
had felt that the remarkable statements of the little girl
savored of untruth, and that the character sustained by the
brother, in particular, was quite out of keeping with the grave
accusations against him. The girl's charges, so clearly
detailed, together with her local ailment, had proved thoroughly
convincing to a group of women who had become interested in her.
Bessie was evidently quite normal mentally and apparently
affectionately regarded her only near relatives--this father and
brother. Her story appeared thus entirely credible. The judge
stated that he had been approached outside of court by these
women, who in their righteous indignation were insistent upon the
need of dire punishment of the outrageous conduct of Bessie's
natural protectors.

We found a rather poorly developed little girl. Weight 64 lbs.;
height 4 ft. 4 in. Bright, pleasant, vivacious expression.
Attitude normal. High, prominent, narrow forehead. Head: length
19 cm., breadth 13 cm. Slightly asymmetrical frontal bosses.
Snub nose; eyes fairly bright; ears asymmetrical in size--.6 cm.
difference in greatest length. Thyroid palpable. Tonsils
enlarged moderately. No sensory defect of importance. Strength
good for size. Color only fairly good. (Results of gynecologic
examination later.)

Bessie was given a wide range of mental tests, with the result
that we classified her as being well up to the ordinary in
ability. Indeed, considering her poor school advantages through
frequent changes of residence she did very well in the subjects
covered by formal education. Her memory processes and ability to
testify correctly--in which we were naturally most
interested--seemed, so far as we were able to test them, quite
normal. Of a standard passage about a fire (Test XII), which she
read once to herself, she recalled 17 out of the 20 items. A
passage containing 12 main details (Test XIII), which was read to
her in the usual way four times, she recalled with 2 details
omitted. The ``Aussage'' test (Test VI) was done very well
indeed, with 17 items of the picture given correctly on free
recital, and 5 rejections out of the 7 suggestions proffered.
Bessie's conversation was fluent and coherent, her range of
information was good. She showed fondness for the dramatic
statement.

Her mother died in the old country when she was about four years
old, and her father had immediately come to America, but had
never established a home of his own. For the last nine months
Bessie had been living with a woman, Mrs. S., who was deeply
interested in her. Previously to this she roomed for about six
months with her father and brother, and prior to that time she
had been placed about in different homes by her father. After
some months with Mrs. S. she complained of local pain and
irritation. When taken to a physician, she said her father was
accustomed to touch her, and her story involved incest by both
her father and brother. After others had become interested in
her case, the matter was turned into the hands of the police. It
was notable that during this period Bessie's love of the dramatic
was being fostered by her newly found woman friend, who was
providing her with lessons in dramatic reading and taking her
extremely frequently to moving picture shows and theatres.

When first seen by us, Bessie reiterated her story of sexual
relations with her father and brother. As she had done with
others, and with the judge, she went into almost convincing
details. Her knowledge of such relationships was apparently
complete. She informed us that she had caught ``an awful
disease'' from her father. She said that while rooming with them
her sexual relations with her father and brother were nightly
occurrences. They all slept in one bed.

A careful inquiry into Bessie's earlier knowledge of such things
brought forth the most astounding account. One may say that this
little girl had the most extensive acquaintance with many kinds
of pervert sex practices that one has ever known in a young
individual. She now said that the last ones who engaged in such
things with her were her father and brother. Her experiences
began at 5 years with a boy and a girl, and, she maintained, they
had been very frequent ever since, up to within the last 9
months. A number of boys and girls were involved, as well as the
men in two households where she had been placed. The practices
she had engaged in were many, running all the way from self use
of pieces of broom to normal intercourse, and both active and
passive forms of pervert practices. It is unnecessary, even in
this medical case, to go into details or to give her actual
phraseology. It is sufficient to say that she frankly stated her
early discovery of the pleasures of local stimulation and how she
asked others to give it to her in various ways. Then she
performed different perversions on boys and men. She told about
observing sex relations between husband and wife in households
where she had lived. She now says she had a disease before she
came home to her father--a doctor had told other people
previously. The men in two homes frequently had complete
intercourse with her, she maintains, and gives description of it.

The credible substance of Bessie's long story elaborately told
upon inquiry into her life history was that she certainly had had
many sex experiences. When, in the light of these, it finally
came to the question of the charges against her father and
brother she said that it was really she who had been the
instigator. When in bed she had begun playing with them. She
described her method, learned before. She now says they did not
have real intercourse with her, but the other men did.

The account of local physical conditions as obtained from several
sources is as follows. Bessie was taken to a physician for
vulvitis, etc., by some people before she came back to her
father. During the period she roomed with her father he
regularly treated her locally with a salve and a wash. The
physician who later examined her for Mrs. S. found the parts so
swollen that he could make no diagnosis of ruptured hymen, but
took it for granted. After the father and brother had been in
jail for some weeks the inflammation had subsided. (It is only
fair to say that the father had clamored for a specialist's
examination, which, he contended, would prove his innocence. Of
course he was not aware of her earlier experiences or he would
not have been so sure.) Then a competent gynecologist found that
coitus had never taken place. The hymen was intact. This was at
the time we studied the case. On the day of the trial, I with
two other physicians examined the girl. It was found that a
cotton swab about 3/8 of an inch in diameter could with
difficulty penetrate the vaginal orifice. There was not the
slightest evidence of any rupture of the hymen or of any
vaginitis. So far as the ``awful disease'' was concerned,
repeated bacteriological tests over a considerable period failed
to show the extensive vulvitis to be due to gonorrhea. It seemed
much more likely that it was due to nonspecific infection
following traumatism from the use of the various foreign objects
which the girl told she had used. Perhaps it was partly the
result of the perversions which, judging by her knowledge of
them, had been practiced by others on her.

We were informed later that much indignation at our report to the
judge was expressed by the crowd in attendance at the trial. The
girl's first story was so well told that many had been
irrevocably convinced of the utter guilt of the father.

The father himself, who was brought to us in the course of our
study of the case, was rather a low type in appearance. He was a
poor earner, evidently had earlier been alcoholic, a small
whining figure with tears in his eyes. His appearance would
prejudice against him. The brother, on the contrary, made an
unusually good impression. He had the best of recommendations.
His sister's first charges ought not to have been believed on the
basis of his qualifications. There had been 5 children, 3 died
in infancy. No history of any significance was obtained except
that the development of Bessie had apparently been normal in all
ways. Her mother was said to be normal. Both parents were
evidently representative products of the underfeeding and
generally poor hygienic conditions of the laboring classes in a
large Irish city. There was unquestionably a great feeling of
affection between the three. Indeed, Mrs. S. stated that it was
the excessive kissing of the child by the father which made her
suspicious. Bessie always maintained that both father and
brother treated her very well and that she loved them much.

It seemed clear to us that Bessie never knew in the least the
significance of the charges she so glibly made at first. Her
mind had long been so full of these things, and their social
import seemed so slight, that it meant no vindictiveness towards
her loved ones to say what she did about them. She asserted to
us later that she really did not know what she said to the judge
at the first hearing. The case illustrated well the fallibility
of a young girl's accusations coming even from the lips of a
normally bright and affectionate daughter or sister.

For her own protection Bessie was given a trial in an
institutional school. From there it was reported after a few
months that her mind was found to be so continually upon sex
subjects that it would be most advisable for her to remain long
under the quietest conditions and closest supervision.

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