Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-04-12
PATHOLOGICAL LYING
By H. Arlington Bruce
ID zlUNTIIS
THO medical psychologists there is nothing
extraordinary in the recent and widely


ITO medical psychologists there is nothing
| extraordinary in the recent and widely
| - advertised thermometer hoax perpe-
trated by Michigan young woman 1t is a
! typical instance of what is known to them as
pathological lying, indicative of a morbid de-
sire to become an object of interested and
sympathetic attention.
Under the influence of such a desire de-
ceptions of all sorts have been devised and
carried through, often with gravely serious
consequences. Again and again it has hap
pened, for example, that men have been sent
to prison because of assaults committed only
in the imaginations of pathological liars.
At times, too, financial swindles have been
set on foot by pathological liars for the sake,
not of monetary gain, but of the satisfaction
of feeling themselves, people of Importance.
The same motive has led other pathological
liars to concoct elaborate frauds suggesting
the presence and action Of some supernatural
force.
The so-called Antagonist ''poltergeist,"
which lured to Nova Scotia well-known New
York psychical researcher, was the creation of
a pathological liar. Indeed, so frequently
have "poltergeists' furniture-throw-
ing ghosts-been traced to pathological liars
that experienced investigators of "hauntings"
of this sort make it a rule to begin by study
ing the personalities of inmates or the sup
posedly haunted houses.
In especial they observe closely any among
the inmates who are girls or young women.
For while pathological lying is by no means
confined to the gentler SEX 1T undoubtedly
occurs more frequently among women than
among men. And it is peculiarly likely to de-
velop in adoescent girls or women whose
lives are in one way or another uncommonIy
unsatisfying to them.
This for reason lucldly stated by the emil
nent Stanley Hall:
"Where life is made dull and straitened by
the environment or tense by disease or defect,
so that the soul is habitually hungry, there we
have temptation to many ways OF escape, from
runaways to falsehood.
without knowing it these hysterical girls
feel disinherited and robbed of their birth
fight Their bourgeoning womans instinct to
be the center of interest and admiration
bursts all bonds and they speak and even act
out what with others would be only secret
reverie.
tThus they cannot only be appreciated but
marvelled at, can almost become prlestesses,
pythonesses, maenads, and set their mates,
neighbOrs or even great savants agOg and
agape, while they have their fling at life. Thus
they can be of consequence, respected, OBJ
served. envied. perhaps even studied. And all
this because their actual life is so dull and
empty"
Granting the accuracy of this statement of
the psychology of pathological liars, it follows
that it would be both unjust and foolish to
hold them to account for their lying, no mat
ter what the hurt that lying may inflict on in
dividuals or society. The just and reasonable
course is to recognize that they are in a con
dition calling, not for punishment, but for
medico-psychological treatment.
They need to be helped to find themselves.
so to speak. They need to be aided to point
Of View and to activities that will make them
at once less self-centered and more self-con
trolled. Penal measures will not help them
one whit. Re-educative measures may be
their salvation.
Copyright, 1929