Chronic Liars Likely Beyond Wanting Help

Habitual lying is startling to see and hear. Whether it can be remedied is a natural curiosity, sometimes even to the person who has entrapped themselves in the dysfunctional, problematic behavior.

“I really don’t know why I lie so much. I lie about almost everything, even stupid, little stuff. It’s like I don’t know how to tell the truth.”

The behavior can become a dependent, go-to, default reaction to stress.

“Lies seem to serve the same purpose as (an) addictive substance itself,” writes Rita Milios, a psychotherapist and a licensed clinical social worker. “They provide an escape from difficulty and unpleasantness. At first, the addict will lie to protect his or her secrets. The will lie to get out of trouble. Perhaps they will lie to avoid criticism that might lead to feelings of shame and guilt.”

This of course leads to more problems.

“Eventually lying becomes a habit, even another addictive process, because it comes to feel comfortable and safe. Meanwhile, telling the truth becomes ever more risky and scary,” Milios writes.

Not even those in respected professions are immune, an example being former journalist Stephen Glass.

Headline: Loving Lies: Stephen Glass, the most notorious fraud in journalism, decided he would live by one simple rule: Always tell the truth. Then he broke that rule

Glass’s story was one that Marcus Hutsen, a business development manager, wanted Communication Intelligence to know about for this article.

“He lied to his co-workers, his editors and his readers,” Hutsen says. “He betrayed everyone who trusted him and he paid an enormous price for it — and so did his employer, The New Republic. More than 15 years after his lies were exposed and he was excommunicated from journalism, he applied for admission to the California Bar. He was denied.”

The consequences go far beyond denied the pain of lost and denied opportunities, Hutsen asserts.

“Habitual liars can reform themselves, through a lot of introspection and therapy but it’s nearly impossible to regain trust from those you’ve hurt,” he says. “And it’s very hard to outrun the bad reputation that hovers over you. Stephen Glass is one of the best examples of that.”

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This is a subject that Carole Lieberman, M.D. and a forensic psychiatrist and expert witness also was interested in addressing. When asked if a chronic liar who doesn’t see anything wrong with the behavior or themselves can be helped, she was frank in her reply.

“If someone who is a habitual liar doesn’t want to stop or doesn’t believe they are lying, it is very difficult to help them,” she says. “The only way to make some inroads in their lying habit is when there is something extremely important to them at stake.”

There is an example Lieberman provides.

“Habitual liar George Santos is at risk of losing his Congressional seat,” she says. “This an opportunity to try to get through to him with therapy.”

If such people possess the self awareness and surprisingly do want to stop a question becomes what really stands in the way of significant improvement so they can achieve the goal of not communicating how they currently do?

Lieberman has an answer.

“Habitual or compulsive liars have extremely low self-esteem beginning in childhood. They feel they have to lie to make themselves acceptable to others and the lies grow from there,” she says. “So, treatment has to get them to understand why they started to lie, why they felt they weren’t good enough as they were. They can only stop lying if they feel like they’ve corrected what they see as their most egregious flaws, from looks to education to financial status and so on.”

There is but one path to improvement.

“The only method that could help a compulsive or habitual liar is intensive long-term psychotherapy that gets to the root of the problem,” Lieberman says.