The surgeon reported to the
parents that conditions were such that they would naturally be
highly irritative, although there had been no previous complaint
about them. The girl made an exceedingly rapid recovery. It was
after this that her last affair of the affections was causing the
parental quandary and distress.
Our final diagnosis of this ease, after careful study of it, was
that it was a typical case of pathological lying, mythomania, or
pseudologia phantastica. The girl could not be called a
defective in any ordinary sense. Her capabilities were above the
average. She showed good moral instincts in many directions and
was at times altogether penitent. Nor could she be said to have
a psychosis. The trouble was confined to one form of conduct.
The lying, as in all these cases, seemed undertaken sometimes for
the advantages which thereby might accrue. On the other hand, at
times the falsification seemed to have no relation to personal
advantages. Indeed, this girl had experience, many times
repeated, that her lying very quickly resulted in suffering to
her. There were aspects of her falsifications which made it seem
as if there was pleasure in the mere manufacture of the stories
themselves and in the living, even for a short time, in the
situations which she had created out of her imagination and
communicated to others.
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