Not all lies are the same and the truth is not always necessary.
When is a child lies and what is not discovered what is experiencing? A very important thing for a good psychic development: that the mental sphere belongs to itself and is inviolable.
Nobody can really read what we think. Once adult it will be a rule that will have internalized well, unless it has developed a serious psychopathology.
It is known that sincerity is sometimes a virtue other times, while continuing to consider it as such, we consider it inappropriate to the specific context.
Let’s not always say the truthwe are all aware of this and we don’t make a worry, accepting the doubt as a constitutive element of the social game.
Those who always say the truth evidently has nothing else to say, mentioned an aphorism.
There are no contexts in which we can say everything related to one’s life. Something will have to be omitted for reasons of time, because it is considered of little importance, to avoid free offenses, in order not to damage us.
As detailed as I want to be in my story I will always have to cut parts.
In therapeutic relationships the pacts are others
The careful is required not to speak of himself and to be able to ask specific questions about the life of the interlocutor; On the other hand, those who ask for help undertakes to be as sincere as possible.
In a relationship of help, the tacit agreement applies that the more not mentally, the more I will help the other to heal myself in the best way.
With this premise it is not easy to understand why many people looking for help, once present in the specific context they lie.
The phenomenon is not even so rare. It has been seen that about 70% of patients lie to their doctor.
The prevailing areas concern omissions: it is not said that they have not understood the indications; The disagreement with the recommendations is not expressed; The sedentary lifestyle and the unhealthy diet are replaced, in the story, with regular physical activity and a healthy diet; Therapies are often not taken according to the doctor’s indications.
The most common motivations given by patients to justify the lack of sincerity are different and often co-prosecutors:
- the fear of being judged
- not wanting to know how harmful your behavior can be
- embarrass
- the fear of disappointing the doctor
- The sense of modesty
- the sense of guilt
Sometimes it simply prevails the desire to appear better.
Also lies in psychotherapeutic contexts
Before starting a psychotherapeutic path, everyone has the desire to to finally be able to communicate everything that passes through the mind.
It seems one of the simplest and most obvious things and yet those who work in this field or have had experiences of psychotherapy know well that this is not the case.
The burden of time, money and energy invested are not sufficient reasons to try to be the most sincere possible, even if the risk is to move away from achieving the required objectives.
Expert therapists move caution, they do not seek the “confession” Connecting with narrative truths rather than historical truths.
Many people refuse to undertake psychotherapeutic work due to excess of honesty, aware that they would not be able to be honest and the expression “I don’t feel like saying my things to a stranger” is the formula that provides the explanation.
Because he lies to the therapist
Very often they are the fear of judgment and the sense of shame that undermines sincerity in the therapeutic relationship.
It is not easy to speak of one’s sexuality, of mental content considered unusual, of unprocessed conducts, of the relationship with abuse substances, of situations that evoke sensations of fear or disgust as soon as they present themselves in the conscious state.
Sometimes it is not the judgment or shame that undermines sincerity but exclusively the lack of trust in the other, which can be a trait of personality (for example paranoid personality) in which any relationship is experienced as threatening and potentially harmful.
The lack of integration may lead not to say some things because the ability to connect events is deficit; Some things are not said because they are deemed not very important or not in some way related to what we are talking about.
There are things that are not said so as not to worry the psychotherapist; Many patients are caring towards the careful. Think of the suicidal idea or dramatic stories that could disturb the listener.
Sometimes it is the patient himself who worries about the fact that talking about some content can push the therapist not to follow them anymore or, worse, to send them to the psychiatrist.
You can lie because psychotherapy is not experienced as a choice but imposed: a spouse who asks the other to be treated, a teenager sent by the parents to make him “mature”, a measure imposed by a judge.
In some brain organic situations the act of lying takes the name of confabulation: without realizing the patient, who presents a memory disorder following the brain problem, fills the voids with imaginary narratives of events that have never happened.
There are personalities (e.g. in the histrionic personality disorder) in which fantasies are developed by the brain as if they were really events; intentional and demonstration narratives of situations never happened are produced.
The aim is not to obtain material or social benefits but to build an idealized identity profile. Clinicians call it Fantastic pseudology.
In some psychotic paintings to guide the story are delusional or hallucinatory phenomena that have nothing to do with a shared plan of reality, being symptoms generated by the disorder.
The therapist can improve the state of affairs
In therapy, sincerity is always partial and conditioned, we take it as a fact.
This does not mean that the therapist must try to limit this trend to the maximum.
How does it do it? Meanwhile, trying to be directed in questions.
It seems strange but many times Patients don’t say things because the therapist does not ask her. The therapist should try to be clear and make sure that the patient does not perceive a judging attitude.
To those who ask for help you have to give time to be able to know and learn that the relationship is solid and worthy of trust.
It takes time to create a good therapeutic alliance; The weaker is the therapeutic alliance the stronger the tendency to lie will be
Sincerity, excluding organic paintings, is built over time and is the daughter of the mutual trust that is established between the protagonists of the relationship.
In the end, what we do doubt remains: “There are doubts that must be resolved, others that cannot be resolved, others that is better not to solve” (Roberto Gervaso).
