Can pathological lying be cured?

Everybody lies. We tell lies in order to hide the nasty truth, help someone or escape unpleasant situations. However, some people lie more than other people do. Nevertheless, lying excessively is wrong since, this way, we are going against one of our basic instincts – trusting each other. Still, this is tolerable is the lies are moderate and told for our own good.

Yet, there are people who lie all the time, just for fun and mischievousness of the process. These people are called pathological liars. Everything they say is a lie and a part of a bigger master plan. Therefore, they feel no remorse once they deceive other people, nor does their conscience act against their misconduct. Rather, they feed on their lies and deception of others, enjoying even more each time they tell another lie.

The Mind of a Pathological Liar

Many times, people confuse compulsive liars with pathological ones. There is a difference. Namely, while a compulsive liar needs to tell lies in order to make him/herself feel good, pathological liar uses lies as channels for his/her hidden aims, which are usually cruel, carefully planned and harmful to someone else. Therefore, a compulsive liar is not a manipulative person, while a pathological one is exactly that.

Is This Reversible or Treatable?

Since pathological lying is a kind of psychological disorder, therapies were developed in order to help these people overcome their destructive lying habits. Once the mental problem behind the lying is treated, usually with medications, there are great chances that the proneness to lying will cease as well.

Another great way of dealing with this problem is through cognitive behavioral therapy in which doctors, through exercises and hypnosis, reach the very reasons behind problematic behavior, usually deep inside one's subconsciousness, and replace them with some other, constructive characteristics, this way controlling a persons proneness to lying.

Nevertheless, before this can be possible, the person in question must want to change as well. Otherwise, the whole treatment will be fake and without any proper progress. The person needs to actually take the prescribed medications and undergo the therapy honestly, which can sometimes be very hard for a pathological liar to do. Therefore, the main change needs to take place in the liar him/herself before any other means of treatment is applied.

Finally, we may come to a conclusion telling ourselves that pathological lying can be treated, but contribution and will-power of the patient are crucial for the success of the process.