What is Pathological Lying? (Pseudologia Fantastica)

This video describes pathological lying. When we talk about the term pathological lying, we're talking about a set of symptoms that appears to be distinct, although there's controversy about that. Currently, it is not a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, but the construct has been studied for a number of years and has a few different names including: compulsive lying, mythomania, morbid lying, and pseudologia fantastica. I'm just going to refer to it as pathological lying. There are three main schools of thought in terms of where pathological lying fits in with mental health. First is that it's a distinct mental disorder and it should be classified as such. With this school of thought, pathological lying is just overlooked. The second school of thought is that it is distinct and it could qualify to be a mental disorder, but it does not impair functioning or it's not treatable. The last theory is that the symptoms may or may not be distinct, but they're really just behaviors that are part of other disorders, specifically Cluster B personality disorders (antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, and histrionic. Pathological lying is a construct for which there is no agreed-upon definition. What are some of the characteristics of pathological lying? We see repeated lying that takes place over the course of years and it becomes a regular habit. The primary motivation does not appear to related to social status, material gain, or be otherwise obvious. The reason for the lying seems to be without purpose. This set of symptoms appears to be chronic and impulsive. A lot of the lies seen with pathological lying are fantastical, but not beyond the realm of what's possible. Pathological lying behaviors can also co-occur with normal lying. Lying that's there to avoid consequences or to be altruistic. We also see that the lying and pathological lying may be a reward in itself. There may be an internal motive for telling the lies. People affected by pathological lying don't always recognize their own behavior. In a sense it can be self-deception as well as an attempt to deceive others. Sometimes it's described in the literature as a daydream or a fantasy that's communicated as true. Instead of an internal daydream or fantasy, individuals who demonstrate pathological lying behaviors communicate these day dreams and fantasies to other people. Eventually they could come to believe in the lies, at least in a sense or they could forget what the truth really is. There's a part of pathological lying that in some instances appears to border on delusional. Other possible motives for pathological lying behavior include to repair an unimpressive narrative. If pathological lying is a distinct mental disorder that simply had been overlooked, there are a number of theories about how these behaviors are different as they manifest in Cluster B personality disorders. For example, if we compare pathological lying to antisocial personality disorder, with antisocial personality disorder, oftentimes the motive would be for some sort of profit. There would be no guilt associated with the lie. With pathological lying, there usually is guilt associated with the lies. In essence, one of the reasons that someone could start to believe the lies would be to reduce feelings of guilt. When we compare pathological lying to narcissistic personality disorder, we see that with NPD there would be a purpose of being grandiose. A number of individuals with NPD believe they are already perfect and that's not really a behavior we see with pathological lying. Comparing pathological lying to borderline personality disorder, a lot of times of with borderline personality disorder the lies have a purpose of avoiding abandonment and sometimes individuals with this disorder falsely accuse other people to avoid rejection or to reject them. There is mood dysregulation tied in with some of the lying behavior in borderline personality that we wouldn't see with pathological lying. Histrionic personality disorder has an attention-seeking component that we don't think is a part of pathological lying.