Michel Lejoyeux is professor of psychiatry in Paris. This specialist in addiction, that is to say especially drug addicts and alcoholics, has heard many lies in his office … This allows him to identify four main families of liars.
The first, which unquestionably concerns medicine, is that of mythomania. As always in psychiatry, the use in popular language of medical terms has twisted the reality of the “mytho” a bit to make it a “spiel”, a “dreamer”.
Far from the reality of a real illness and especially suffering, for those who feel an urgent need to lie. To respond to the contempt he feels for himself; an “abjection of conscience”, as Boris Cyrulnik so aptly puts it. This renowned neurologist who is also a specialist in animal behavior, hesitates to treat the mythomaniac as a liar, unlike the one for whom lying is cynical and utilitarian.
No pathology identified for this liar, who abuses and manipulates, while the mythomaniac lies for the pleasure of attracting attention. Patient does not mean moreover a candidate for treatment since he never consults spontaneously. In the vast majority of cases, it is only examined in the context of a forensic expertise …
One cannot speak either of treatment in the cynical liar since his act disappears as soon as the danger disappears.
However, to say in front of a liar that one is in front of a mythomaniac or not, which legally could change the responsibility, is extremely complex, requires a long and careful psychiatric examination. This means that the examples which currently drink the news do not allow to decide.
The two categories of lying, mythomania and utilitarian lying, do not sum up the problem. There is a third, very specific category, “denial”, which could be defined as the refusal to take charge of certain realities. It is the domain of predilection of drug addicts or certain psychiatric illnesses.
Finally, medicine cannot approach the chapter of lies without mentioning a fourth and final category, which doctors modestly call “the acceptable false truth”. A very particular way to explain that some lie to their patients so as not to hurt them … A debate which, contrary to what many doctors say, is far from settled.
What attitude to have in the face of a lie? For Boris Cyrulnik, it is necessary to bring nuances even if the cynical and manipulative lie remains contemptible. As soon as we remove the passion that surrounds this subject, we can also think that the lie is a proof of intellectual virtuosity and that we are all forced to lie; the animal, moreover, is also a liar as soon as it is able to act on the minds of others.
Another particular example: the child, a great liar without anyone having taught him; it is, for him, a defense mechanism of negation of a reality that bothers him …
However, for Michel Lejoyeux, the debate that agitates our society today presents a danger: the basis of community life presupposes that the other is telling the truth. One should be wary of concise generalizations, because the reality is not that simple and lying is a behavior difficult to classify. Generalizing it makes it a very practical trivialization …
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