Persistent lying

This page is nearly always read by somebody else. A parent, a spouse, a brother — rarely the person it is about, which is part of what makes it difficult.

Parents describe lies that serve no purpose. Homework that was definitely done and was not. A broken glass nobody touched. A school trip described in detail that never happened. What unsettles them is the lying about things that would have cost nothing to admit — and the aftermath, a lie held onto long past being found out and repeated the following week.

Adults describe it in a marriage or a family: stories that do not join up, and an account of a career, an income or a past that turns out to have been furniture rather than fact.

A smaller number describe it about themselves — saying something untrue before deciding to, and not being able to explain afterwards why.

Recognising your child, your spouse or yourself in a paragraph on a website is not the same as knowing what is going on. This page describes; it does not assess anyone, and there is nothing here for you to score against.

Children lie. So do adults. Lying to avoid trouble is ordinary, and a child inventing a story is often doing something closer to play than to deception.

What a clinician pays attention to is age, pattern, purpose and cost. What is expected at five is not what is expected at fifteen, and age is weighed first. A pattern running over months rather than a difficult term. Lying where there was nothing to gain. And a real cost — friendships, school, work, money, or a household in which nobody believes anybody any more.

One thing worth saying plainly. Lying is a behaviour, not a diagnosis, and it sits on top of many different things — fear of a consequence at home, a learning difficulty being covered up, attention difficulties that look like dishonesty from outside, low self-esteem building a better story to live in, and sometimes a longer-standing pattern in how a person relates to others. Which of those it is changes everything that follows.

Only a qualified clinician can tell you what is going on — a website cannot.

What PHC does not do, stated first because people arrive asking for it. PHC does not provide lie detection, polygraph testing or verification of whether a statement is true. A psychologist is not an investigator, and nobody is assessed here without their own consent — or, for a child, their guardian's. We can assess a person and describe what is going on; we cannot adjudicate an argument.

1. An initial sessionWe ask what has been going on, for how long, in what situations, and what it is costing. For a child, the parents are part of that conversation.
2. The assessment that is actually indicatedWhich one follows the initial session rather than the presenting word. For a long-standing pattern in an adult, the next step is usually a structured personality assessment. For a child falling behind and covering it, a learning and achievement assessment is often what explains years of it. You will not be given tests you do not need.
3. A psychologist matched to what the assessment foundPsychologists at PHC are not assigned on availability. Assignment is based on speciality, the presenting needs and clinical fit — and for a child, on age.
4. Therapy, reviewed as it goesFor teenagers and adults the modality most often indicated is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which PHC uses for negative thought patterns among other things. For younger children the work is usually done through play therapy and behavioural approaches, with the parents closely involved. Sessions are 50 minutes, in clinic at our PECHS clinic or in DHA, or online.

• Personality disorders
• Parenting difficulties
• Low self-esteem
• Personality assessment
• CBT at PHC