The phenomenon occurs in both men and women equally. This will allow psychiatrists to assess whether or not some people can be held responsible by the legal system.Īccording to one study, the average age at onset of pathological lying behavior is 16, and the average age at discovery is 22. Charles Dike are very outspoken about the necessity of clearly defining pathological lying and including it in the next edition of DSM. This is the reason why some psychiatrists like Dr. The fact that compulsive liars will sometimes tell self-incriminating lies such as admitting to crimes they didn’t commit is particularly intriguing and suggests a pathology. Ordinary people try to make their lies believable and will usually avoid any grandiose claims.Ordinary people don’t usually lie about things that are easy to verify.Why do ordinary healthy people sometimes lie?
This isn’t to say that if the term isn’t mentioned in books on psychiatry, then the problem doesn’t exist but drawing conclusions about exact meaning of these terms or trying to find the difference between the two is not something we should be doing at this stage.Īlthough it’s possible that pathological lying and compulsive lying will have different official definitions in the future, for now “compulsive lying” is simply another word for pathological lying which isn’t clearly defined either. Until one of the two will be given an official status of a disorder, it is probably safe to say that both terms can be used interchangeably. Just like “malignant narcissism”, “pathological lying” and “compulsive lying” cannot be used as diagnostic terms. Needless to say, if the disorder has no official status and even psychiatrists can’t agree on one single definition, our chances to “clarify” the difference between compulsive liar and pathological liar are very slim. Even if it was included in DSM-III, it certainly doesn’t exist in DSM-5, which is the latest edition of the book (verified personally). Charles Dike, a forensic psychiatrist and clinical instructor in psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, demanded for pathological lying to be included in DSM back in 2010, which obviously means that it wasn’t included. Īlthough Wikipedia assures that pathological lying is included in DSM-III as a stand-alone disorder as well as a symptom of other disorders, Dr.
Mark Griffiths, a Chartered Psychologist and Director of the International Gaming Research Unit in the Psychology Division at Nottingham Trent University, pathological (or compulsive) lying is not included in either the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) or the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). With no reliable sources it’s tough to choose what to believe, but the reality is that the psychiatric community doesn’t have a consensus about compulsive lying or pathological lying. Compulsive lying and pathological lying are the same thing. Compulsive lying is usually a symptom of another psychiatric disorder such as narcissism or bipolar disorder.ģ. Pathological liars lie to manipulate people and/or achieve their goals while compulsive liars lie because they simply can’t help it.Ģ. Unfortunately, they don’t mention any solid references and, due to the nature of the Internet where anyone can write about anything, several theories developed:ġ. There seems to be a lot of confusion about these two terms, and quite a few websites attempted to “clarify” the issue. This article is an attempt to gather all facts supported by strong references. Both compulsive lying and pathological lying are a hot topic due to the lack of clear definitions.