Fantastical pseudology in forensic psychiatric exploration

Abstract

Psychiatrists are often requested for medical examination to assess children who may have been physically or sexually abused. The purpose of the evaluation may be clinical, to determine if the child has an emotional disorder and the reason for this disorder; or forensic, to determine if the abuse occurred and who might be the abuser. An important clinical and forensic aspect in the evaluation of these children is due to the credibility of the children’s testimony.1 Fantastical pseudology goes by multiple different names including pathologic lying and mythomania.2 According to Delbrück, the fantastical pseudology would be ‘The urgent to pathological lying and exaggeration’ and for Dupré, ‘mythomania’ is defined as’ Constitutional tendency to the alteration of truth, to fabulation, to lie and to the creation of imaginary fables’, so both terms are used as synonyms.3 In the reported case, fantastical pseudology is illustrated as a manifestation of infantile testimony followed by discussion of its characteristics and the possible differential diagnosis.