Behavior of compulsive lying is truly a controversial topic discussed in psychology. Pathological lying is the process of lying persistently to get going without paying little or no concern for others.
Sociopath
The person who lies constantly is called a sociopath and he always lies to get his goal accomplished. He is not bothered about the feeling of others. The personality of such sociopaths is charismatic and they use their maximum talent and social skills in self centric approach.
Compulsive Liar
It is the person who habitually lies repeatedly. The art of telling lies has become his/her habit and they very often respond to questions by telling lies. The answers will carry little elements of truth and they often manipulate the truth either large or small. The individual feels uncomfortable in telling the truth and this habit develop right from his childhood.
Characteristics
Psudologia fantastica is the name given for pathological liars who will have the following traits in them.
Whenever they tell lies, they will include some truth in it and they manipulate the truth to some extent. If questioned, they can even admit that what they told was untrue. The habit of telling lies is long lasting and it does not stem out as a response to particular situation or environment. A pathological liar will not tell lies out of pressure and it would have become an innate trait for of his personality.
There would be an inner motive which can be detected in clinical setting. In other words, pathological liar will lie due to habitual spousal torture or extortion or due to any other reason. However he would continue to tell lies repeatedly even after the issue has been settled. The stories which they tell during lying largely describe them as great personality or in close association with famous personalities.
They would also have false memory syndrome which is a condition that makes him/her believe that the events recited by him/her had actually taken place. At no point of time, they would accept the stories as fantasy and they strongly believe whatever they said is true. He would, for example, believe strongly that he has supernatural powers to stop some natural events.
Pathological lying is a type of psychological problem that interrupts the rational judgmental skills of the person concerned. The individual will often make willful false statements for the simple belief that everything is possible by him.
Who Are At Risk ?
People with various types of psychological problem are prone to tell lies willfully or intentionally. They will keep on progressing into the fantasy world believing their irrational powers strongly. For instance, individuals who are affected with various types of personality disorder like narcissistic personality, borderline personality and antisocial personality would prefer to lie for drawing attention. Very often these lies are meaningless and would clearly convey the message to the listener that they are lying.
Treatment
Treatment becomes very difficult because the person has to be treated for underlying psychological or behavioral problem and he/she believes strongly that what he/she tells is absolutely true. It is hard for them to accept or admit their problem. Psychotherapy can be given for treating pathological liars.
Behavioral therapy given by trained psychologist can help them to overcome this problem. Pathological lying is definitely a complex phenomenon to cure and is totally different from lies told by healthy persons.
Symptoms
You can identify a pathological liar by the body language and the way in which the concerned person uses language. They will start telling fantasy and complex sentences which never end shortly. They tell lies even for simple things without any purpose. They would try to impress people on their stories since they believe in what they are actually telling. Very often, the stories narrated by pathological liars are farfetched and one can easily identify them as lies.
Why Pathological Liars Lie ?
Mostly pathological liars tell lies to get noticed or getting attention from others. Some people tell stories or fantasies to gain popularity and to cover up their failures.