Pathology of Lying, Etc.

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She speaks of another class of prattlers, chattering people that
might be confounded with pathological liars from the stories they
tell in full detail. But they have no system which they develop,
often change their subject and do not paint in a lifelike way
because they do not believe their own stories or live in them in
a self-centered manner.

Of the 17 cases Stemmermann studied from the literature
(Delbruck, Hinrichsen, Jorger, Redlich, Koelle, Henneberg ,
Wellenbergh) 10 were periodic. Of her own 10 cases, 6 were
periodic. Sex abnormalities were present in 5 out of the 17 in
the literature. Among possible causes of pathological lying she
places any factor which narrows consciousness and increases
suggestion and weakness, such as pregnancy, overexertion, chronic
alcoholism, monotonous living, long, close work, head injuries.

Concerning prognosis she finds little detailed in the literature.
The general opinion is that such cases arising from a background
of degeneracy are incurable. One of her cases was free from
attacks for two periods of three years each, and had been
blameless in an honorable position as editor for seven years at
the time of the publication of her monograph. She suggests that
the profession he has chosen may be particularly suited to the
talents of the pathological liar. She also ventures to state
that where pathological lying is merely an accompaniment of
puberty it may disappear.

The fact that so many of the cases cited by Stemmermann were
clearly abnormal and found places in insane asylums makes much
citation of them by us, in turn, hardly worth while. However, a
short summary of a couple of her more normal cases will show the
problems and conditions as she found them. I. Annie J., 19 years
old, father a tailor, had been employed in several places as a
servant. Aside from the fact that it was stated she always had
an inclination to lie, nothing more was known about her early
life. She complained of headaches and fainting attacks, and
mourned over the death of her fiance. She said he had gone to
Berlin to learn tailoring and had died there of inflammation of
the lungs. He left her 650 marks which her mother got hold of.
On investigation it was found that this man was still alive and
never had been engaged to her. She then accused her mother of
taking 50 marks from her and said that a man, purporting to be
her real father, came from another town and told her she had been
brought up by foster parents. Through the quarreling which arose
from these various stories Annie was taken before the police
physician and pronounced mentally unsound. Then she told of
another engagement with the brother of her departed fiance, who
had discovered her real mother. The latter was going to leave
her 30,000 marks. He had formed a plot with the foster mother to
put Annie out of the way and to divide the money. He followed
her on the street and threw a drugged cloth over her head. She
fainted and was carried home. She said she brought action for
attempt to murder. (Whether this fiance and the rich mother were
real persons is not known.) Later in the same year, Annie being
again at large, a new father, der Graf von Woldau, appeared and
bought her beautiful clothes costing 100 marks. He wanted to
take her away, but quickly disappeared and was not seen again.
When Annie told this story she was employed by a woman who
attempted to get traces of the count, but failed. Later this
employer missed a sum of money equivalent to that spent for the
clothes. Annie's responsibility by this time was still more
questioned and she was sent to an insane asylum. There she was
found normally oriented, orderly, industrious, but suffered from
periodical headaches. When questioned in the asylum concerning
her tales she hesitated and would say, ``Now I believe them and
now I don't.'' It is remarkable in this case that her different
employers believed all her fabrications and took the girl's part
against the supposed offenders. For a year she engaged in a sort
of orgy of pathological lying and then this phase of her career
stopped. After a few months in the asylum she returned home and
later married. The last report from her mother was that she was
nervous and easily excited, but showed no further signs of
insanity.

II. This was a boy, Johann P., who was studied mentally first
when he was 16 years old. A thoroughly good history was
forthcoming. He was brought for examination on account of his
extreme changeableness, his failure in several occupations, his
tendencies to swindling and his extreme lying. As a young child
his mother had to correct him much for prevarications. Soon
after he was 9, when both his parents were already dead, he
forged a school certificate and was felt to be a bad influence in
the home of his guardian. About that time he also stole money
from pockets on a number of occasions. In school he was regarded
as an undesirable pupil on account of his underhanded behavior,
and one teacher who had observed him for long wrote that he
showed marked inclination towards lying. At the time he was 15,
he was somewhat retarded in school life, but was told he had to
decide upon an occupation. After a stormy period he announced he
would become a gardener. After doing well for a month or so at
his first place he began to tell compromising stories about the
wife of his employer. He gave himself out to be the son of a
general who was going to inherit a large sum of money. On the
strength of this he managed to get hold of expensive articles he
desired. A short time afterward he wrote to his guardian he was
fitted for higher pursuits than that of gardening. Soon
afterward he ran away to a large town. He now wrote that the
word freedom sounded like the sweetest music in his ears. He
acknowledged that he had started on a career of criminality, but
decided to do better. At this time he attempted to make his way
by offering his compositions at a newspaper office where they
were declined either because his productions were immature or his
authorship was doubted. One editor loaned him some money, but he
got much more by representing himself to be a collaborator of
this editor. He soon failed to make his way and attempted other
things, including entrance into the merchant marine. He finally
turned up again at his guardian's house, and when his box was
opened it was found to contain a very curious lot of material
such as money accounts, business cards, letter heads, catalogues.
It was at this time that he was placed for observation in an
asylum and it was soon found that his alleged compositions were
plagiarized. He claimed to suffer from headaches. Outside of
that he was in fine physical condition. He frequently wrote
sketches in proof of his ability. A general statement was
finally made that he showed slight traces of hysteria, was a
sufferer from headaches, and showed periodic tendencies to
wandering and lying. No special defect in the ethical
discriminations was present. He had good insight into his own
tendencies. He was finally released to his guardian, and
Stemmermann offered the prognosis that Johann might well develop
into a typical pathological swindler. He came of a family of
five brothers and sisters, one of whom was incarcerated for a
year on account of stealing. One sister was noted for her
tendency to prevarication. Several of them were remarkably
unstable, at least early in life. All of them are said to have
learned very unwillingly in school. One brother of the father
was exceedingly nervous.

Jorger[15] presents a case of a boy of poor parents who was from
childhood possessed of the idea of becoming a teacher. He was
always a solitary child, endowed with great religious fervor. In
spite of poverty he obtained an education, studied the classics,
and did excellent work. He developed early religious
eccentricities, became unsound on money matters, boasted of his
father's millions, spent freely as a benefactor, bought expensive
books. Then developed an outspoken tendency to swindling.
Finally he was adjudged insane and committed to an asylum.
Commenting on this case, Jorger points out the marks of
abnormality from childhood, such as solitariness and religious
intensity. He was above normal in intellectual ability, but
lacking in moral development. He did not love parents, brothers,
sisters, or teachers; he was very egotistical. Jorger defines
this as a case of constitutional psychosis. When older,
pseudologia phantastica controlled him; it was like hypnotic
influence, his dreams of wealth were like paranoia. His hypnotic
condition grew to such an extent that there was an interruption
of consciousness with following amnesia.

[15]``Beitrage zur Kenntnisse der Pseudologin phantastica.''
Viertel-jahrschrift fur gerichtliche Medicin und offentliches
Sanitatswesen, 1904 Bd. XXVII; pp. 189-242.

Henneberg[16] cites another case of a highly educated young man
who told wonderful stories in childhood and later obtained money
under false pretenses with elaborate deception. From an
eccentric grandmother, and a mother who was very excitable and
suffered from hysteria, he inherited a nervous system which was
not calculated to bear the strain which his own overzealous
efforts in pursuing his studies and his spiritual exaltation put
upon it, hence the mental and moral breakdown. This is a very
interesting case because it does not fit into the usual group of
pathological liars.

[16] ``Zur kasuistischen und klin. Beurteilung der Pseudologia
phantastica.'' Charite-Annalen, XXV, XXVI.

Wendt[17] enlarges the field in which we may look for such cases.
He finds pseudologia phantastica a symptom, not only of hysteria,
alcoholism, paranoia, but also of sex repression, and
neurasthenia. He takes a more philosophical view of the subject
than previous authors. He understands by pseudologia phantastica
not merely the bare habit of telling fantastic lies, and what
they bring forth, but rather the yielding up of consciousness of
reality in the presence of the morbidly fantastic wish in its
widest consequences. Since the wish in order to exist is not
permitted to lose entirely the conscious presentation of what it
hopes for, so memory and recognition of reality emerge
disconnected in consciousness, and a condition described as
double consciousness arises. In this state of mind two forms of
life run side by side, the actual and the desired, finally the
latter becomes preponderant and decisive. Such a psychic make-up
must lead unconditionally and necessarily to swindling and law
breaking. A degenerative alteration furnishes the basis from
which a wish or wish-complex arises, increasing in force until it
becomes autosuggestion, hence it is pathological. Then follow
the practical consequences, and we have developed, on the one
side, pathological lying, and, on the other, swindling, i.e.,
criminality. Purely symptomatically pseudologia phantastica is
characterized by the groundlessness of the fabrications, the
heightened suggestibility of the patient, and in its wake arises
double consciousness and inadequate powers of reproduction of
reality.

[17] ``Ein Beitrag zur Kasuistik der Pseudologia phantastica.''
Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychiatrie, LXVIII, Heft 4; pp.
482-500.

Wendt gives at length the history of a precocious boy, the son of
an official of medical rank, who had lived always with older
people. He lied from early childhood. He was a chronic sufferer
from severe headaches. Between the ages of 15 and 17 this boy
showed evidences of literary talent, but was poor in mathematics.
From a tender age he had an overmastering desire to become great;
he said he wished to become a jurist because only jurists get the
high offices. He entered a South German university, rented a
fine apartment, stated he was accustomed to a Schloss, his father
was a high state official. He later called himself Graf
Friedrich Gersdorf auf Blankenhain. The young man's deceits grew
rapidly, he obtained much money falsely, traveled first class
with a body servant. He passed to other universities, was always
quiet and industrious. After many adventures he fell into the
hands of the law and was adjudged insane. Most interesting was
the fact that he discussed intelligently his career. ``My
capacity for considering my thoughts as something really carried
out in life is unfortunately too great to permit my having full
conception of the boundary between appearance and reality.''

The family history of the above case included swindling,
hysteria, and epilepsy. His fabricating tendency first reached
its height at 14 years, thus showing the influence of puberty.
Wendt regarded the etiological factors as family degeneracy, a
wish-complex which in activity amounted to autosuggestion, double
consciousness, and a periodical preponderance of the wished for
personality.

Bresler[18] in proposing two reforms in the German
``Strafgesetzbuch'' undertook a discussion of pathological
accusations, as material using cases reported by several authors.
He attempted a classification as follows: 1. Deliberately false
accusations based upon the pathological disposition or impulse to
lie; the content of the accusation being fabricated. 2. False
accusation upon a basis of pathologically disturbed perceptions
or reasoning. Content of the accusation is here illusion,
hallucination, or delusion. 3. Accusations correct in content,
but pathologically motivated.

[18] ``Die pathologische Anschuldigung.''
Juristisch-psychiatrische Grenzfragen, Band V, Heft 8, pp. 42.

The first group nearly always is the action of hystericals, and
many are centered on sex affairs. Bresler's cited cases of this
class seem merely to impress the idea of revenge, or of
protection from deserved punishment. A very complicated case was
that of a girl who had been rejected in marriage after the
discovery by her lover that she had attacks of major hysteria.
She entered into a conspiracy with her mother to destroy him.
She first maliciously cut grape vines and accused him and his
brother of doing it. Then she slandered his whole family. A
year later, suddenly appearing wounded, she accused his uncle of
trying to kill her and obtained a verdict against him. Then she
attempted the same with another uncle who, however, maintained an
alibi. After this her role changed, for her mother summoned
people to see her daughter lying with a wreath around her head,
brought by an angel, with a scroll on which was inscribed
``Corona Martyri.'' The church now took her part and she toured
the country as a sort of saint. Later she returned to her former
tactics, she set fire to a house, cut off a cow's udder, and
accused her former lover of these deeds. Now for the first time
it went badly with her. She was finally imprisoned for life on
account of attempts to poison people.

In Bresler's second group he places the false accusations of
alcoholics, paranoiacs, querulants (whom he calls a sub-class of
paranoiacs) and sufferers from head injuries. Besides these, he
here classes the false accusations of children.

The third class is so rare that it receives almost no discussion.

Longard[19] reports an interesting case of a chronic liar and
swindler, a man who on account of the peculiarities of his
swindling was placed under custody for study. Upon detention he
went into convulsions and later seemed entirely distracted. He
was then 24 years old. Investigation of his case showed that his
abnormalities dated from early life and were probably due to the
fact that in childhood he had a bad fall from a height. When he
was 23 he had served six months on account of swindling. At that
time he had been going about in the Rhine country dressed as a
monk, begging things of little worth, such as crucifixes,
candles, medals, etc. His pious behavior and orderliness gave
him a good reception. He sometimes took money or begged it in
order to read masses for poor souls. In one village he said he
had come to reconnoiter for a site to build a hospital. Some
cloister brothers in one place took him for a swindler and
decided he was overwrought religiously, and that he really
thought he was what he wished to become. He was studied at
length in prison where he had one attack of maniacal behavior and
tried to hang himself. The physician there thought him a
simulator. He was excused from his military service because of
stomach trouble. At that time mental abnormalities were not
noticed. After this he again acted the part of a monk, wandering
through France and Germany, living in monasteries, and being
helped along by different organizations, Protestant as well as
Catholic. He was arrested in Cologne when discovered to be a
fraud. He lay four days in jail apparently unconscious and then
appeared stupefied and staggered about. When questioned he
responded, ``I am born again.'' He spoke mostly in Biblical
terms and was fluent with pious speeches. He was found quite
sound physically. He ate a great deal and was known to take
bread away from other prisoners at night. He was sentenced for
15 months for swindling. He himself related that in youth he had
seen many monks and had become possessed of the idea of being
one. He was a sex pervert.

[19] ``Ein forensisch interessanter Fall. Pseudologia
phantastica.'' Allg. Zeitschrift f. Psych. LV, p. 88.

The author considered this not a pure case of simulation; the
patient was an abnormal being, none of his keepers thought him
normal. His entire appearance, his excited way of speaking, his
gestures and play of features were all striking to a high degree.
His method of going about begging was unreasonable; he gained so
little by it. His tendency to untruthfulness stood out
everywhere. He imitated the pious as he chattered without aim.
The man had lived himself into the role of a cloister brother so
completely that he was not clearly conscious of the deceit. The
author thinks the case presents some paranoiac features with a
pathological tendency towards lying. Thus this pathological liar
presents the phenomenon of a mixture of lies and delusions.

From the Zurich clinic of Forel several cases of pathological
swindling have been reported at length.[20] It must be confessed
that the success of much of the misrepresentation cited in these
case histories seems to be as largely due to the naivete of the
country folk as to the efforts of the swindlers themselves. Two
of the cases were clearly insane and were detained for long
periods in asylums after their study in the clinic. But even so,
it is to be noted that one of these when absenting himself from
institutional care succeeded in going on with his swindling
operations. The third case was regarded as that of an
aberrational individual with special tendency towards lying and
swindling, but the opinion rendered did not end in the man being
held as insane. He was simply regarded as a delinquent, and
after serving his sentence he went his old way. These cases are
interesting to one who would learn the extent to which swindling
among a simple minded population can be carried on.

[20] ``Gerichtlich-psychiatrische Gutachten aus d. Klinik von
Prof. Forel in Zurich; f. Aerzte u. Juristen, herausgegeb. von
Dr. Th. Koelle.'' Stuttgart, Encke, 1902.

From French sources we have not been able to collect such a
wealth of material as we found in German literature. One study
by Belletrud and Mercier[21] compares favorably in elaborate
working out of details with the work of German authors. A
Corsican boy, from childhood moody, fond of adventure, inclined
to deception, had attempted suicide several times before he was
twenty years old. He was married at that time and went to
France, where he was employed in several towns. His life
following this included an immense amount of lying and swindling.
He had a mania for buying costly antique furniture and jewelry
which he obtained on credit. He frequently disappeared from
localities where he was wanted on criminal charges, and changed
his name. He wandered through Italy, Tunis, and South America.
Returning to France he was taken into custody and mental troubles
were noted. He showed delirium of persecution and was removed to
a hospital for the insane. Experts studied him for a year before
they could decide whether he was insane or merely simulating
insanity. Finally they thought he was not simulating. A few
months later he escaped, went to Belgium, Italy, Corsica.
Turning up at a town in France under an assumed name, he was
arrested again and elaborately examined. At this time he had
frequent attacks of unconsciousness and frothing at the mouth.
At times he was melancholy. Summarizing the case, the authors
say that the psychic peculiarities of the patient were
congenital, and included habitual instability of character with
defective development of the ethical sentiments, and tendency to
deceit and swindling. Epilepsy here is, of course, the central
cause of mental and moral deterioration.

[21] ``Un cas de mythomanie; escroquerie et simulation chez un
epileptique.'' L'Encephale, June 1910, p. 677.

From a pedagogical point of view Rouma[22] tells of the marvelous
stories of a five-year-old boy in the Froebel school at
Charleroi. His stories were generally suggested by something
told by the teacher or other pupils. He referred their anecdotes
to himself or other members of his family and greatly enlarged
upon them. He also made elaborate childish drawings and gave
long accounts of what they meant. Going into the question of
heredity Rouma found this boy's mother very nervous; the father
was a good man. She had worked steadily at the machine before
his birth. Two of their children died with convulsions; of the
two living, one was well behaved, but weakly. Rouma's case had
stigmata of degeneracy in ears, palate, and jaw. Tested by the
Binet system, he did three out of five of the tests for five
years satisfactorily. He was easily fatigued, refused at times
to respond, said he had been forbidden to reply, said he would be
whipped if he did. In school he was always poor at manual work,
wanted to be moving about, to go out of classes on errands, was
always calling notice to himself in a good or bad way. He paid
very little attention to his lessons, played alone or with
younger children, leading them often into mischief. It was found
that he got much of his material for stories from his older
brother who told him of robbers and accidents. From his good
father he got the form of his tales, because the father was wont
to tell him stories with a moral.

[22] ``Un cas de mythomanie.'' Arch. de Psych. 1908, pp.
259-282.

In summary, Rouma stated that this child possessed senses acute
beyond the average, and was of very unstable temperament,
refusing regular work, not submitting to rules, rebelling at
abstractions. There were evidences of degeneracy on the mother's
side.

Remedies in education for such children are: Suppress food for
imagination, such as came from the stories of father and brother.
Direct perceptions to accurate work. Systematize education of
attention, exercise the senses, use manual work, such as modeling
and gardening. Give lessons in observation in the class room and
on promenades.

Meunier[23] tells of three girls in a well known Parisian school
who indulged in wonderful tales. The first, in the intermediate
grade, told stories of the illness of her father to account for
her not having her lessons. The second, 11 years old, said that
her mother was dying; she came bringing this news to the teachers
at two different periods of her school life. She was a calm,
thoughtful, analytical child with no reason for lying. Family
history negative. The third, 13 years old, told of an imaginary
uncle who was going to collect funds for needy children; she kept
up the deceit for two months. She was an anemic, nervous,
hysterical child with a nervous mother. Meunier calls these
cases of systematized deliriums. The development of such
delirium annihilates, so to speak, the entire personality of the
subject, and his entire mental life is invaded by abnormal extra
and introspection--the delirium commands and systematizes all
acquired impressions. There is a veritable splitting of the
personality in which the new ``ego'' is developed at the expense
of the normal ``ego'' that now only appears at intervals.

[23] ``Remarks on Three Cases of Morbid Lying.'' Journal of
Mental Pathology, 1904, pp. 140-142.

CHAPTER III

CASES OF PATHOLOGICAL LYING AND SWINDLING

In the group of twelve cases making up this chapter we have
limited ourselves to a simple type in order to demonstrate most
clearly the classical characteristics of pathological liars. How
pathological lying verges into swindling may be readily seen in
several of the following cases, e.g., Cases 3, 8, 10, 12,
although only two, Cases 3 and 12, have had time as yet to show
marked development of the swindling tendency. For the purpose of
aiding in the demonstration of the evolution of lying into
swindling, and also to bring out the fact that facility in
language may be the determining influence towards pathological
lying and swindling, we have included Case 12, which otherwise
possibly might be considered under our head of border-line mental
types.

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