Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology

by William Healy; Mary Tenney Healy

In the course of our study of this case we obtained from Amanda a very good account of her own life, deeply tragic in its details, and a probably correct analysis of her beginnings in lying. It seems that she remembers well her mother, particularly in the later visits which the relatives allowed. These must have been when she was about 5 or 6 years old. ``I know a lot. There isn't anything bad that I have not seen and heard. I try to forget it, but I can't. What's the use anyhow? When I think of my mother it all comes up again. When I was very little I would sit in a room with my mother and a crowd of her friends and they would say everything in front of me. I would see men and women go into rooms and I kept wondering what they did in there. I think I was quicker and sharper then than I am now. I think I was about 3 when I used to see them smoking and drinking. Then I used to think it was all right. I thought it was swell and that I would like to do it too. I thought about it a lot. Mother, you see, would tell me to be good one minute and the next would teach me how to swear. I remember once when I was about 7 they brought her home drunk. She looked terrible. I can close my eyes and see her just as plainly as if it is there before me. A protective society once found me and took me to their place. Then I lived with my grandfather. Mother stole me from them and then my uncle took me. I lived around in lots of places. I have done lots of bad things. . . . .

``I picture these things too—I can't help it. The pictures come up in my mind as plain as can be—not just at night, but in the daytime too. The only thing I have ever been really afraid of is the dark. Then I imagine I hear people talking. I see things too. I see whole shows that I have been to. But then, as I have said, I see them when I'm awake and in the daytime. I dream about them also. Sometimes they are so real I don't know whether I'm asleep or awake. For instance, a long time ago I read Peck's Bad Boy and I can see those pictures now just as plain as when I read the book. It is always that way about what I read. The things I read I always see in pictures. It's that way with the love stories too. I used to read lots and lots of them. I like to read about murders. I can see those too. When I read about the R. murder in the papers lately I just felt like I was there. I could see everything he did. I don't know why I like to read such things so much. It was the same way last winter. I read a story with suicide in it and someway I just wanted to commit suicide myself. I did go to the railroad tracks and stood around until the train came and then walked away. . . . .

``My aunt says that I am too attractive and that I stare at the men. Well, when she was with me a man did stare at me and I stared back at him. I could have turned my head away, but I'm not that kind of a girl. I'm a bad girl. Everyone believes me so and I might just as well be. When I was little in my mother's place I used to smoke and drink. I dream every night—often about men doing bad things. I wake up and sit up to see if men are there or if they are gone. My dreams are always just that plain. If I read a book I can sit down and imagine all the people are right before me. I can get it just by reading. If anybody speaks to me I jump, and it is all gone. When I go to the theatre or the nickel show I can come home and see the whole show over again. I have been that way ever since I could understand things. When I was small and people would tell me things I could imagine them right in front of me. Even now I will be sitting still and I will imagine I see my mother taking me up in the way she used to. When I came to see her she would rock me to sleep, and I can plainly see her lying in the coffin. Often I think I see my mother brought home drunk.

``If I have anything to recite in school I just think of it all the time. I dream a good deal about what that boy did and about these other things. I can sit and think of everything he did to me. I go to bed and I lie awake and think all these things and I can't get them off my mind and then I start to dreaming about them.

``There is always this trouble—my mother wasn't good and I can't be good. That's what people say, but, of course, that's not so. I know I start talking to girls about these things when they are talking to me. I sometimes think that things will come back—that the Chicago fire is coming back, and that slavery is coming back.

``About my lying? I don't know why I tell things like that about my aunt committing suicide—it just came into my head. Oh, I've got lots of things in my head. I never had any chance to forget. I can't forget at school. School does not interest me any more. That's why I want to go to work. Perhaps then I should be interested in something new.

``I used to tell lots of things that were not so out there at P. Sometimes I did it as a joke and sometimes I meant it. It is hard sometimes to tell just what is the truth, I imagine things so hard. I can remember lots that I've read.''

Amanda in several interviews went on at great length in a very rational way, but altogether the gist of her view of her case is to be found in the above. She told that she was a masturbator, as might be supposed. She feels she can't help this and never felt it was so particularly bad. Apparently it is a part of her life of imagination at night. She insisted frequently on the vividness of her mental content, and indeed was anxious to talk about her peculiarities in this respect. It was very apparent that she showed real understanding of the forces which had influenced her. It should be noted that we felt sure that it is not only the strength of imagery, namely, of actually recollected material, but also of imagination which is characteristic of this girl's mental make-up. This was noticeable, as we have shown above, in the ``Aussage'' Test. In our notes on psychological findings we stated that the girl has both strong emotions and strong convictions, together with her other qualities. She expressed herself with considerable vehemence, and under observation we noted changes from pleasantness to extremely ugly looks when her relatives were mentioned. It was true that she had seen immorality in other households than that of her mother, and this, of course, rendered her even more skeptical about true values in life.

It seemed clear that this bright girl had experienced so many contradictions in life that she was much mixed about it all. We might venture to suggest that the delinquency involved in lying could seem very little compared to the actual deeds with which she had come in contact. No idea that falsification was wrong was expressed by her. She had used double sets of standards in behavior all through her life. What she was urged to be and to do seemed impossible in the light of her past and its connections. Even her apparent decency belied the reality underlying her career, she thought. With all this and her vivid imagery it is little wonder that her magnificent powers of imagination had full sway and that she said and half believed all sorts of things which were not true. Then, probably, habit-formation of indulging in day-dreams accentuated the falsifying tendency.

It is too early to report on further progress of this case. For some months she has been in a school for girls where discipline and education are both emphasized.