We first saw this young woman of 16 with the mother who maintained that there must be something wrong with the girl's mentality because of her lying, recent running away from home, and some minor misconduct. There had been trouble with her since she was 7 years old. She was the twin of a child who died early and who never developed normally. Her mother said she seemed smart enough in some ways; she had reached 7th grade before she was 14, but even at that time she was a truant and would run off to moving-picture shows at every opportunity. Her father was a rascal and came of an immoral family. He had a criminal record, and that was another reason why the mother felt this girl was going to the bad. The mother herself was strong and healthy; she was remarried. The existence of feeblemindedness, epilepsy, or insanity on either side was denied.
We quickly observed by the physical conditions of this girl that something was the matter. Expression sad and dull. Long thin face and compressed lips. Vision almost nil in one eye, but normal in the other. Hearing normal. Color only fair. Weight 115 lbs.; height 5 ft. 4 in. Most notable was her general listlessness. ``I feel draggy and tired. I'm yawning all the time.''
On the mental tests we found much irregularity. Tasks that were done without effort were done fairly well. The girl was a good reader and wrote a good hand. A long task in arithmetic was with difficulty done correctly. When she was able to get hold of herself she could do even our harder tests with accuracy. Her failures were apparently from lack of concentration and attention. Although she did some things well we felt obliged to call her dull from physical causes, feeling that if she were in better condition she might give a much better performance.
On the ``Aussage,'' or Testimony Test, 11 items were given on free recital and 2 of these were wrong. Upon questioning, 17 more details were added and 4 of these were incorrect. 2 out of 5 suggestions definitely accepted.
Under observation it was just as the mother said. The girl was an extreme falsifier. As one observer puts it, ``she is not malicious in her lies, but just lies all the time and seems to try to make herself believe what she is saying.''
``I was in the 7th grade. Had a hundred jobs since then. Can't keep them because I'm so draggy. They want their money's worth—they want a more live girl. Sometimes I don't mind my mother and I get spunky. I feel lonesome and get mad. I feel tired. I can't please my mother no matter how hard I try. I'd like to go in some little home where I could have a chance.''
After a few days we found this girl in a decidedly good mood, wanting to be helped. She willingly entered into the analysis of her case with us and said she thought most of her trouble came because she was a day-dreamer. ``Sometimes I dream of things in the day time. I'll sit and stare and stare and think of different things. I'll think I'm doing them. I'll dream of things what I do and if I read a good play I'll dream of that. When I think of myself or somebody starts looking at me I'll stop dreaming.''
To another observer this girl gave a vivid description of how she felt after seeing pictures in the nickel shows. She states that love-making scenes lead her to practice self-abuse. This matter was taken up with her mother who stated that when this child was 7 years old she and the father had caught her at this habit and had severely reprimanded her and had thought she had stopped it. We were particularly interested to hear this because it was exactly the time the mother had specified as the beginning of her lying and general bad behavior. Going farther into the case with the mother and the girl we ascertained that her bad sex habits had been continued more or less during all these years, and of late, particularly under the influence of picture shows, and of what some other girls were doing in the way of delinquency, the habit had become worse than ever. It was closely connected evidently with day-dreaming all these years and with the development of the fabricating tendency.
The mother who had been apparently so negligent of causes proved now to be a stalwart in this case and took the girl under her immediate charge. There was steady betterment. The girl went back and finished school and at the end of a year was reported as tremendously improved. There was no further complaint about her lying. We know that after this she long held a good position which any hint of untrustworthiness or lack of capacity would have lost her. Thus the cure of her sex habits brought about cessation of her extreme untruthfulness.
———————————————————————————————- Bad sex habits long continued. Case 7. Heredity. (?) Father immoral Girl, age 16 yrs. and criminal. Home conditions. Lack of understanding and supervision. Delinquencies: Mentality: Excessive lying. Dull from physical Early truancy. causes. (Later Running away. quite normal.) ———————————————————————————————-