Previous Studies : Part 1

Pathology of Lying, Accusation, And Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology
by William Healy, A.B., M.D., Mary Tenney Healy, B.L.

(Page 2 of 12)

The subject of pathological lying was first definitely brought to the attention of the medical and legal professions by the studies of Delbruck. The aim of this work was to follow the development of a symptom but little commented upon up to this time, a symptom, as he says, found in every healthy person in slight degree, but in some cases rising to pathological significance and perhaps dominating the entire picture of abnormal traits - thus becoming pathognomonic. This symptom he at the outset calls lying.

Through an elaborate and exhaustive investigation of the lies told by five patients over a period of years, he came to the conclusion that the form of falsifying in these cases deserves a new and separate name. It was not ordinary lying, or delusion, or false memory, these words express only part of the conception; hence he coined the new term, pseudologia phantastica, to cover the species of lying with which he was concerned. Later German writers have also adopted his terminology.

To emphasize the method by which he arrived at this conclusion and to gain at the same time some knowledge of the problems he dealt with, we may review in bare outline his case-studies.

The first patient presented by Delbruck was an Austrian maid-servant who in her wanderings through Austria and Switzerland had played at various times the roles of Roumanian princess, Spaniard of royal lineage, a poor medical student, and the rich friend of a bishop. Her lying revealed a mixture of imagination, boastfulness, deception, delusion, and dissimulation. She romanced wonderfully about her royal birth and wrote letters purporting to be from a cardinal to herself. She fled disguised as a man from an educational institution to Switzerland where her sex was discovered. It appeared that she was subject to contrary sex feelings and thought of herself as a man. She was under the observation of Krafft-Ebing at one time.

He considered it at least as a case of paranoia. Others had determined the girl to be a psychopath who indulged in simulations and lies. Delbruck denominated it a case of direct lying with a tendency to phantasies, delusions, and dissimulations. Delbruck from this case argues that a mixture of lies and delusions is possible, comparing such a state with dreaming and with the hypnotic condition in which one follows the suggestion of the hypnotizer and is still aware of the fact. It was evident at times that this girl half believed her own stories, then again that she had forgotten her former lies. In her, Delbruck considers perverted sex feeling and hysteria revealed a brain organization abnormal from birth. There was the instinctive tendency to lie.

The second patient, an epileptic girl, had been many times imprisoned and also sent to the Charite for examination into her sanity before Delbruck saw her. Her peculiar method was to approach strangers, claiming to be a relative coming from another city to visit. If cordially received she would stay as long as her welcome lasted, then depart taking with her any of their possessions her fancy chose. Many prominent physicians examined her and were unable to decide as to her responsibility; judges and others said she was a willful deceiver, a refined swindler. Delbruck, looking deeper, found that she was suffering from hysteria, having hystero-epileptic seizures with following delirium, or rather twilight states. Though her delinquencies seemed to show cunning and skill, a careful investigation revealed the fact that this was merely aberrant. Generally her thieving was undertaken in feebleminded fashion; many times she stole things worthless to herself.

Evidences of her pathological mentality were that she would give orders for groceries, would buy children's clothes, or send for a physician under an assumed name. She might not go back for the groceries, but after ordering them would say she would return with the carriage. The characteristic fact throughout her career was that she wished to appear to be some one wealthier, more influential than she was. Delbruck classifies her as high-grade feebleminded, suffering from convulsive attacks and peculiar states of consciousness, with a morbid tendency to lying. She possessed no power to realize the culpable nature of her acts when she was performing them.

His third patient as a boy appeared normal both mentally and physically. In his youth he went through the gymnasium and then studied theology. He spent money very freely on clothing and books, but at this period neither stole nor lied. After finishing his theological studies, he preached in his home town and was regarded as a young man of great promise. Then came a change; he began to write strange letters, telling of some positions offered him, he borrowed money freely from relatives and friends who were willing to give because they believed in his coming career. When studied, it was concluded by Delbruck that this was a case of constitutional psychosis, hysteria, moral insanity, and psychopathy - all of these forms being interrelated. Outside of masturbation, begun in early childhood and indulged in excessively at times, no causal factors were discovered. He considered that this case offered a good illustration of the peculiar coexistence of real lies and delusions in the same individual.

His fourth case was that of an artful, deceitful, arrogant, selfish boy, always clever in excuses, who had stolen from the age of twelve, often stolen things that he threw away. Though of Protestant family, he delighted to draw Catholic insignia and embroider religious characters. He finally entered the university, always lying and stealing. At the end of three months he was taken home in debt 2000 marks. He later became a Catholic. Outside of normal expense he had cost his father 28,000 marks. By the time he was studied he had already taken opium for four years, having started because of neuralgia. There had been a severe operation on account of some trouble with the teeth. It was discovered that there was contrary sexual feeling in this case also. The patient had a great inclination for doing woman's handwork. Delbruck again considered the early appearance of character anomalies and perverted sex feeling to prove a deep-seated abnormality of nervous constitution. He diagnosed it as a case of constitutional psychosis; the extent of the abnormalities showing the individual to be irresponsible.