Regarding her diversions Emma says that she likes reading, especially fairy tales. She reads mostly Andersen's Fairy Tales. She enjoys dressing up as a grown lady and playing make-believe. She particularly likes to go to bed early and lie and imagine things. She imagines sometimes that she is grown up and married and has her own home and children.
The neglect, through ignorance, of the several genetic features of Emma's case was quite clear. The mother was made acquainted with the facts, which her little daughter then affirmed to her, and she promised to alter conditions. We insisted on attention to Emma's eyes and general physical conditions, on removal from neighborhood association with these old companions, on the necessity for motherly confidences, on watchfulness to break up sex habits, and on the development of better mental interests. Through relatives in the home town it seemed there was some chance to get these remedial measures undertaken.
A year and a half later we can state that a certain number of our suggestions were followed out. The mother gained a better understanding of the case and there were some, although not enough, environmental changes. The father's mental condition has been much better, perhaps because he has largely refrained from drink, and consequently family affairs are more stable. The girl herself is said not to be doing perfectly either in school or home life, but to be vastly improved. We have obtained no definite statement concerning whether she now lies at all or not, but it is sure that Emma has engaged in no more egregious types of prevarications and in no more false accusations. Competent observers think the case is fairly promising in its general moral aspects if environmental conditions continue to improve.
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Mental conflict. Case 14.
Improper sex teachings. Girl, age 13.
Bad companions.
Home conditions: Lack of understanding
and control.
Father alcoholic,
insane (?)
Defective vision.
Delinquencies: Mentality:
False accusations. Ability fair.
Runaway.
Obtaining money by false representations.
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CASE 15
Summary: Girl of 16, over a period of some weeks made extreme accusations against several members of her family. She gave detailed account of sex immorality, alleged drunkenness and thieving, and an attack on her own life. She had herself, it was found, begun delinquent tendencies. The family circumstances and her clearly detailed account gave the color of possibility to her accusations, but investigation proved some of them false, and all of a sudden, after maintaining for long a most convincing demeanor, she withdrew her allegations. Both before and since this episode she has given no marked evidence of being a falsifier.
We were asked to study this case by police officials who thought perhaps the girl was the victim of some delusional state. She appeared at the police station and informed them her adult brother had been thieving from the place where he worked. She lived with him. Investigation by detectives on the strength of her convincingly given details proved his innocence. When the brother appeared on the scene he said he had been intending to report her on account of her being away from home. She herself was then held in custody.
We found a girl in very good general physical condition. Well developed in sex characteristics and a very mature type of face. Outside of a somewhat enlarged thyroid and moderately defective vision, we found nothing abnormal. Weight 114 lbs.; height 5 ft. Notable was her strong features, deep set eyes, high, broad forehead and sharp chin.
Our study of her on the mental side led us to denominate her as having fair general ability. She had had poor educational advantages. We noted much irregularity on work on tests. She did comparatively poorly on anything that called for careful attention and concentration. This was especially notable when she was dealing with abstractions or situations to be mentally represented. Although she could do arithmetic up to simple division she made a bad failure in the continued process of subtraction as given in the Kraepelin test of taking 8's from 100. In the work on the Code, Test XI, she found it altogether impossible to keep her mind concentrated. In tests where perceptions were largely brought into play she did very well. We noticed that she was possessed of a very dramatic manner. She sighed frequently as she worked. She was very nervous, continually moving her hands and tapping the table. She was quite satisfied with her superficial efforts. It was very curious that we, as well as others, were able to note her apparent sincere belief in her own statements about her family. As she made them she looked the interviewer straight in the eyes; there was not a hint of evasiveness.
Her result on the ``Aussage'' (Test VI) was very meager. She only recalled 10 details of the picture. On cross- examination she gave correctly 14 more items and was wrong on 3 of them. She accepted only 2 out of 5 suggestions offered and these were the most probable ones.