Pseudology

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Pseudology ( ancient Greek ψεῦδος pseudos 'false' and logic ) or mythomania is a concept that describes the behavior of people who repeatedly lie. Although pseudology is recognized as a symptom, there is no consensus on whether it also meets the criteria of a mental disorder in its own right .

Concept history

Since Anton Delbrück (1891), psychiatry has used the term pseudologia phantastica ("addiction to lies") to denote the urge to lie and exaggerate in a pathological manner. The term pathological lying is used more often today . Munchhausen syndrome is a special form of pseudologia phantastica , in which the patient invents physical complaints and substantiates them with lies in order to get the attention of doctors. In the modern psychiatric classification, this disorder is classified under “other personality and behavioral disorders / artificial disorder” ( ICD-10 : F68.1). In contrast to the delusional in the context of psychoses or persistent delusional disorders (ICD-10: F20, F22), the pseudologist can revise his conviction in the light of reality. However, comparable to category F22, the disturbance lasts for a long time without being interrupted by phases of normalcy. As a rule, there are no current external reasons for the behavior (such as so-called "white lies"), so that an internal reason can be assumed as the cause.

Heinz Kohut (1971) made a depth psychological contribution to understanding this tendency to be untruthful. He differentiates between lies, which arose from an insufficient internalization of the normative parents within the framework of the Oedipus complex and which are therefore more accessible from a psychotherapeutic point of view, from lies as a result of neglect in early childhood. People who would have had to do without idealizable parents as early as infancy replace this loss with the fantasy of their own omnipotence (size self). The displayed contempt for all values ​​and ideals serve to ward off and deny a longing for an idealizable parent figure or the tendency to produce idealizing transfers . The danger posed by these transferences is that of traumatic rejection by the idealized object, with the result of unbearable narcissistic tension and painful shame and hypochondria . These patients' pride in the dexterity with which they ruthlessly manipulate their environment serves in addition to preventing emptiness and lack of self-esteem from replacing the perpetual criminal activity of the Great-Self, in word or deed.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dike CC, Baranoski M, Griffith EE: Pathological Lying Revisited . In: Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law . 33 no 3, 2005, p. 342-349 ( jaapl.org ).

literature

  • Heinz Kohut : Narcissism. A theory of the psychoanalytic treatment of narcissistic personality disorders . suhrkamp pocket book science, Frankfurt a. M. 1976 [am. Orig .: The Analysis of the Self. A Systematic Approach to the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorders . International Universities Press, New York 1971.]
  • Anton Delbrück : The pathological lie and the psychologically abnormal swindlers. An investigation into the gradual transition from a normal psychological process to a pathological symptom. Enke, Stuttgart 1891 ( MDZ ).

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