Pathology of Lying, Etc.

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

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It was after this that the girl gave much trouble because of
queer little trickery concerning some insurance papers, and about
losing some money. Her friends wasted much time in the endeavor
to get these matters adjusted. The family she was with thought
she was very childish for her age.

Our opinion as dictated at this time was that the girl was
physically and mentally all right, but that she showed a
decidedly childish reaction towards the world and was very
suggestible and unreliable. We knew many more facts about her
which proved these points. Our judgment set down was that she
was an unstable adolescent with possibility of showing very
different characteristics inside of a year or two. We noted she
had a weak type of face.

She was seen four months later, after a period of having run away
twice for several days at a time. On inquiry she maintains she
was impelled to do it by her own feelings of restlessness and
general dissatisfaction. She thought the people with whom she
lived were very nice and only strict as they should be. There
was some question raised about this time about the periodicity of
her impulsions, but except for her own statement that it was just
before her menstrual time, nothing definite was proved. On the
last occasion she did pick up with a young man and was immoral
with him. She stayed out in a hallway all night. A venereal
disease was then acquired. This was speedily treated in a
hospital and the girl was found another place. Three years have
elapsed, and during the time this girl has continued under the
observation of one of her old friends. She has remained steady
and trustworthy, and shows no tendency whatever towards
untruthfulness or evasiveness. She has lived in one good home
for two years and the people are deeply attached to her.

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Adolescent impulses: Lack of self-control. Case 19.
Sex temptations. resisted. Girl, age 18.
Lack of parental care.
Deficient interests: Both mental and
recreational.
Delinquencies: Mentality:
False accusations. Good ability.
Stealing.
General lying.
Staying away from home.
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CASE 20

Summary: A girl of almost 16 years, of attractive and innocent
appearance, alleged that she had been leading an immoral life and
frequenting houses of assignation. She told the story to the
people of her church, who were naturally horrified and demanded a
thorough investigation of the social vice problems involved.
This was undertaken by the police authorities, but they failed to
get any satisfactory evidence from the girl. It was later found
that the story was all a myth and the girl had not been in the
least immoral. Her first statements followed directly after her
attendance at an emotional revival meeting where these topics had
been preached about. Afterward this girl was in court many times
for various reasons. She is a mild psychoneurotic type,
exhibiting under stress unusual mental phenomena. She and her
family have created an astonishing amount of trouble in law
courts as both defendants and complainants, because their
peculiar unreliabilities have not been understood.

This case has long been under observation and we have much
information concerning it. It was found difficult to understand
by pastors and others who had given considerable attention to
various aspects of it. Annie F. was first seen by us when under
custody because of her own statement that she had been leading an
immoral life. We have seen her and members of her family many
times since. The account of the case can best be given, not by
commencing with the cross-section study as obtained at first, but
by going at once into its whole connections and evolution. At
first it was merely learned that we had to do with an unstable,
adolescent girl who had engaged for apparently no purpose
whatever in false self-accusations which would naturally blight
her career.

On the physical side we found a rather slight girl, however, of
normal development. Weight 102 lbs.; height 5 ft. 3 in. No
organic defect was ever discovered. Neurological examination
showed as follows: No tremors. Tendon reflexes normal.
Conjunctival and palatal reflexes absent. The sense of pain to
pin pricks was almost nil on the arms, and diminished on the
face. Strength poor in the arms even when there was evidently
great effort made. (Several of these functional findings,
however, have varied from time to time in the ensuing years.)
Hearing normal. Ocular examination showed hypermetropia 1.5 D.
R. and L. with marked astigmatism. Fields and color vision
normal. Left pupil about twice the size of the right. (A
competent oculist could find no evidence of organic affection of
the nervous system correlated with this.) Shape of head normal.
Bowels regular. Appetite capricious. When first seen was
anemic, but later color was very good. Temperature was taken
regularly, but no significant observations made. Petite, pretty
features, and unusually beautiful eyes. Complaint of frontal
dull headaches, soreness of scalp, cold hands and pain ``about
the heart.'' Menstruated at 15 years, then much irregularity for
two years. Several badly carious teeth and great crowding in a
narrow upper dental arch.

This girl was several times observed during a period of about 5
years. She developed into an unusually attractive young woman,
showing at times various mild nervous disturbances as well as
character difficulties. Only occasionally has she worn the
glasses which corrected her errors of refraction. During this
time she has not been severely ill. She has a palpable thyroid
which has hardly increased in size. When last seen she was
notable for a very clear skin, good color, and bright eyes.
Conjunctival and corneal reflexes much diminished.
Palatopharyngeal reflexes quite absent. The headaches are said
to have persisted during all the time we have known her.

We have repeatedly attempted to summarize the mental status and
functionings of this young woman, but our findings on tests and
otherwise have been irregular and diverse. She reached 6th grade
at 14 years, but had been absent much on account of sickness.
When first seen we found that she was already fond of Lytton,
Scott, and Dickens, and that she was a great reader of the daily
newspapers, dwelling much on accidents and tragedies. What we
say about her ability must be based upon the best that she has
demonstrated. Often when seen she has been in some mental state
which has prevented her from doing, or being willing to do, the
best that is in her. She writes a good hand, does long division
promptly, and reads well. Her association and memory processes
have been proved normal, but given a task to do she is prone to
show inhibitory pauses and other phenomena which interfere much
with a satisfactory result. She has some little reputation of
being able to give long, almost verbatim accounts of sermons
which she has heard, but the accuracy of her report we have not
been able to verify. She gave the antonyms of twenty words in
average time of 1.4'', which is a good record. There was one
failure, but that was quite typical. At the end of 20'', which
is beyond the time of failure, she gave ``unhappy'' as the
opposite of ``happy,'' adding that she had thought of that
before, only she did not speak it out. Her tests for psychomotor
control were miserably done. She was rapid in movement, but
absolutely inaccurate and did not follow instructions. However,
we felt that even this did not indicate her full ability, for she
had capably held a position in a millinery establishment where
she was required to show manipulative dexterity. Perhaps the
best statement of her performances is that she demonstrated great
irregularities from time to time, and even at the same
examination in her work on different tests.

On account of her peculiar testimony against herself, her memory
processes and especially her performance on the ``Aussage'' test
the case seemed of great interest. We found, as we stated above,
in various ways that her abilities to remember, when at her best,
were normal, but using the ``Aussage'' picture we obtained only 6
details in free recital; she was sure that was all she saw in the
picture. Then on cross-questioning she mentioned 9 more items
correctly, and gave 8 others much altered from the truth. No
other item was added, but her report on these was almost
illusional in its incorrectness. Of 5 suggestions offered she
accepted 2 of the least important, refusing the others entirely.
This was a remarkably poor result for a girl of her age, but may
not be indicative of her best abilities even on this type of
work. Our final opinion was that she was not clearly subnormal
in native ability.

Annie has grown somewhat more stable as the years have gone on.
Following our first acquaintance with her we have known this girl
to make serious false accusations against others (vide infra) and
to again damage her own reputation by alleging herself to be
pregnant when she was not. Her word in other matters all along
has been found somewhat unreliable, but there has been no
extensive weaving of romances such as those indulged in by
typical pathological liars. Our original diagnosis of this as a
case of pathological accusation upon the basis of mild hysteria
we have seen no reason to change. Both Annie and other members
of her family are representatives of a most important type for
court officials and all other social workers to understand. A
great deal of trouble has been caused in several religious
congregations by the unusual character of the behavior of these
people. Also the number of times they have been in courts for
various reasons is astonishing.

The history of physical and mental development merges closely
with the story of evolution in the moral sphere, and all can be
given together. On account of the mother having long been dead
and the father being the peculiar man that he is there is some
question about the truth of some of the details which have been
given us, but we have reason to believe that the main facts are
true because they have been held to be the truth in the family
circle generally and were not merely given to us. Verification
of details would be very difficult because the family are
distributed between Europe and America, and no relatives outside
the immediate family are at hand. The mother was in excessively
poor condition at the birth of Annie. She had miscarriages
preceding and following. It is stated that the diagnosis of
malaria was made and that the mother had convulsions both before
and after confinement. At the birth the prolonged labor and
instrumentation were not known to have done any damage. As an
infant Annie is said to have been frail, but not to have had any
definite sickness or any convulsions.

However, at about Annie's fifth year there began a long list of
illnesses. She had scarlet fever severely and also a number of
other children's diseases. At 8 years she had an attack of
muscular jerking, and then had a number of successive attacks
until she was 14 years. At one time she was in a public hospital
for three weeks on account of this. It was stated that this was
chorea, but of course we can not be sure on this point. Annie
was always regarded as a very nervous child; she was frequently a
somnambulist until she was about 12. She is very nervous before
the onset of menstruation. Of recent years she has been an
excessive user of tea-- at times before we first saw her she is
said to have had 12 cups of tea in a day. At times she was then
suffering from sleeplessness, and was wont to feel tired in the
morning. As a young child she had severe night fears, seeing
terrifying shadows upon the wall.

On account of her illnesses and her general nervous condition,
Annie was very irregular in her school attendance. However, she
reached 6th grade. As to the family opinion of her mentality we
hear that they have regarded her as being an odd type, not lazy,
but irritable, hateful, and moody by spells. Her memory is said
to be most irregular, sometimes exceedingly good. The other
children find it difficult to get along with her because she
slaps them so much. At times she swears. At the time of the
revival meeting, shortly before we saw her, she is said to have
come home from church in an hysterical state. When in custody
she was in rather a dazed condition. Where she was detained they
say she acted as if she were stunned. Her memory did not seem at
all clear, nor has it ever seemed other than confused about the
events immediately surrounding the main episode of her career.
She maintained she could not remember just exactly what she had
said, and her account of it contradicted that of her father.

As we afterwards learned from the church people, it is
undoubtedly a fact that her notions of self-accusation came from
a Sunday School session in which her teacher repeated what had
been talked about in the revival meeting concerning the scarlet
woman. A day or two afterward the girl told that she herself was
``a scarlet woman.'' She told it first to the teacher, was then
taken to the pastor, when she reiterated the story, and the
police authorities were called in. Of course her story implied
lack of home guardianship and consequently the whole affair was
handled for some days by the police alone, after the girl had
given a very detailed description of her immoral life. By the
time we saw the father it had been ascertained that this girl had
never been away from home a single night in her life and probably
had never been in the least immoral sexually.

It is necessary to have knowledge of the heredity and
environmental background to understand this case. Almost nothing
is known of the maternal family. After losing his first wife,
the father was twice remarried, and even the third wife has
divorced him. He had a brother who, after going insane and
killing two laborers, committed suicide. His grandmother, and
probably also a cousin, were insane. Two of his sisters were of
a nervous and hysterical type and said to have attacks of
aphonia. A child by his second wife is epileptic. This man
gives us a long account of his own defective heredity and of his
own physical ailments. He does not recognize the fact, however,
that he also is mentally below par. We have seen him on numerous
occasions and known of his great activity in the courts, and have
attempted to size him up. He is undoubtedly a constitutional
inferior, in poor general physical condition and subject to
episodic mental states. One would be inclined to call him a
semi-responsible individual with mild delusions, defective
reasoning ability, great energy in self-assertion, and of
combative disposition. This latter shows itself in his voluble
emphasis on the alleged ill treatment of himself and family, even
by his wives. He is never physically violent. On account of
false accusations, whether delusional or not, he got at least one
pastor into a peck of trouble, and, strangely enough, his wives
have been involved in some other church embroilments when his own
character was called severely into question. On one occasion we
were interested to enumerate an astonishing list of people and
organizations which, he stated, had treated him and his family
unfairly. It seemed to us that during the last two or three
years he must largely have lived in the courts to carry on his
transactions there. His concern for his daughter seemed genuine
and her delinquency led him to seek the law more than ever. Some
of the good people who have become interested in his affairs tell
us that his is the strangest story they have ever heard. His
veracity is often in question. On more than one occasion with us
he has dwelled on his nervous states, and on the fact that he is
subject to times of mental confusion, but he defends his own
judgment and actions on all occasions with great vigor.

This most erratic father has nearly always sided with Annie and
offered excuses for her under all circumstances. However, she
has stated that he was most difficult to live with on account of
his quarreling at home and general bad management of the
household. We know that at times he has been a seeker of
newspaper notoriety. From his conversations with us and with
others we know that his mind dwells much on sex affairs and these
things are frequently discussed in the home. There has been much
turmoil and quarreling in the family circle, at least with the
last two wives. On several occasions the family have had to
appeal for aid from the charities because none of them succeeded
in making a living. Annie alleged she was taught shop-lifting by
the second wife--we regard this as being possibly true on account
of the woman's general reputation, the fact that they were
desperately poor, and that she drank at times.

The father has the ability to make a very good presentation of
himself, to use the best of language and he has had musical
training enough to be able to give lessons. Annie herself has
taken many lessons in music.

The after-history of this case is instructive. Almost none of
our suggestions were taken when our first diagnosis was made.
Two years after we first saw Annie she was placed in an
institution for delinquents, then having run away from home,
``picked up'' a man on the street and stayed all night in a hotel
with him. At the institution the girl became very nervous and
behaved badly and the authorities decided it was a poor place for
her. The father, who at first wanted her placed there, very soon
decided that she should be removed. It is very likely his
attitude had something to do with her behavior there.

About this time Annie worked in a millinery shop where she proved
herself quick and skilful. There she told stories again defaming
herself. She said she had had a baby and went into complete
details, such as giving the name of the nurse who had taken care
of her, and so on. On account of this she was discharged. Later
she told us she related these stories to get even with her
father, for if there was ever a hell on earth it was living with
him.

About three years after our first study of Annie, the father
himself brought a complaint against her of untruthfulness and
general unreliability. This was at one of the times when he was
complaining bitterly of other people. It seems he had lately
tried to restrain her from leaving the house and she had cut his
head open with an umbrella. It was evident she had started
downhill again, and she was placed in a Rescue Home. She now
repeatedly told people she was pregnant and made charges against
some man, but these soon fell through because a little detective
work showed she was corresponding with a boy and had very likely
been immoral with him and others. She was then making an attempt
to lead a dual life, maintaining she wanted to save some of the
unfortunates with whom she was placed, while at the same time
entering into various escapades with them and others. At this
period a suicidal attempt was reported, but we never had
satisfactory proof of the genuineness of this. Annie was now
regarded as being excessively delinquent.

A few months afterwards, when the young woman was in one of her
better moods and wished to do well, we made a few vocational
tests on her. We found her quite unfit for the position of
telephone operator which had been suggested for her. Psychomotor
control appeared then decidedly defective. However, there was
great improvement on work done on intellectual tests two or three
years previously. Although she had developed physically (she now
was a particularly good looking young woman) we felt she was
quite unfit for work which demanded steady effort. One trouble
all along was the fact that she did not wear her glasses. We
advised then, as we had advised at first, a quiet country life
for Annie and the other members of the family. The constant
stimulus of city conditions was too much for them.

Again our advice was not taken and some months later the father
came to us with the story of extreme poverty, some recent attacks
of unconsciousness on his part, separation from his third wife,
and the information that Annie was about to become a chorus girl.

Even a final consideration of the general diagnosis in this case
which has been so long observed by us does not seem to justify
our including it among our border-line mental types. Application
of the term constitutional inferiority seems a priori warranted
by the family history and yet we have no proof that her physical
and mental conditions as enumerated above are not the result of
her many early illnesses and the excessively erratic
environmental conditions, rather than of causes which existed at
birth.

On account of the peculiar inhibitory phases which arose nearly
always during observation, we never relied merely on the results
of laboratory tests for our judgment, and her success in some
social situations has proved the wisdom of this. Our earliest
feeling that we had to do with a temporary and mild psychosis was
perhaps justified, but further observation of her has led us to
see clearly that she is not to be considered as a deeply
aberrational type. Could she ever have been free from the
extraordinarily upsetting home conditions one could have gauged
much more accurately her mental capabilities. As time went on,
the moral difficulties, which were largely induced by family
conditions, led to mental as well as moral upsets which could be
considered as little else than normal reactions to the situation.
Her conduct lapses, under the circumstances, are no indication of
any mental breakdown. On the contrary, it is clear by our own
examinations and the accounts of other observers that she
gradually has showed greater mental stability.

(Since writing the above, we have had, by chance, the opportunity
of getting some important information about this case from an
entirely new source. A person who knew the family many years ago
corroborates the father's remarkable story of antecedents. The
father himself remains in about the same state of social
incapacity. Annie, now married to a young man with a long
criminal record, has a child. Her word has recently been found
absolutely unreliable, and testimony lately given by her in court
concerning her husband was grossly false when it would seem that
her interests and welfare demanded her testifying the truth
concerning his non-support.)

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Mentality: Psychoneurotic. Case 20.
Heredity: Extremely defective. Girl, age 16.
Developmental conditions: Defective antenatal
conditions. Difficult birth. Earlier neurosis.

Physical conditions: Earlier dental defects.
Defective vision, usually uncorrected.
Stigmata of eyes.
Stimulants: Excessive use of tea.
Home conditions: Highly erratic and unstable.
Many bad influences there.
Excitement and suggestion from revival.

Delinquencies: Mentality:
Self-accusations. Abilities irregular,
Running away. and as above.
Sex affairs.
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CASE 21

Summary: This case illustrates the fact that pathological lying
and accusation may arise first during a period of special stress.
A young woman of 19, after illegitimately becoming pregnant, was
found home after home by a charitable organization. In each
place she made false accusations of immoral proposals against
some one in the family or neighborhood. This created much
trouble and lost her several good homes. Her lies persisted
after an abortion had been secretly produced, but it is to be
noted that she now, as a sequel to the operation, suffered from
irritative pelvic conditions.

A short statement of this case will suffice to bring out the
point that during a period of social and mental upset
pathological lying and accusation may be first indulged in. We
studied the case of a young woman of 19 who had been the source
of much trouble in a certain locality on account of her false
accusations. She was taken in hand by a charitable organization
and found a home, after she had become pregnant at a wedding
feast where alcoholic stimulants flowed freely. There was then
no one to look after her but an invalid father. She was placed
with an estimable family. In a short time she made the shocking
announcement to the wife, and to others, that the husband had
made immoral advances to her. He was a man of excellent
character and of course this could not be believed. She was then
placed on a farm, where she showed erotic tendencies and insisted
that one of the helpers about the place wanted to take liberties
with her. She was observed flirting and making advances to
thrashers and others. She had to be found a new home, and this
time it was in a city, where new accusations were made against a
delivery boy. After this the young woman made off and shifted
for herself for a time, and succeeded in getting some shady
character to produce an abortion on her. Later, she again came
to the official attention of the social agency by reason of
making new accusations. From the date of her impregnation to the
time we first studied her, a period of about 10 months, she had
made serious accusations against many. When her lies were told
in a new environment they, of course, always made new trouble.
Each time, however, the girl herself was the loser. Her real
partner at the wedding feast had early deposited several hundred
dollars for the expected infant.

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