Mental Health Minute

Liar! Liar!

by Lisa Philippart, Licensed Professional Counselor

Can you tell when someone is lying? If you do a Google search on how to tell when someone is ly ing, you’ll find many articles that give you lists with items such as ner vousness, voice changes, fidgeting, or averting eye contact. But if you have ever participated in a meeting of any kind, these happen all the time! In fact, these are perfectly normal reactions to a rela tively stressful event, like a job interview. And just FYI, about 23% of people admit to lying during an interview. Spotting a lie can be ex tremely difficult. We all have our idiosyncrasies when we lie, rather than some set patterns that are constant across all indi viduals. And often when people are lying, it is likely that some of what they are saying is actually true. It is difficult to sort through the information and figure out what is the deceitful part and what isn’t. For most people (narcissists excluded) lying takes ef fort because remembering lie upon lie requires tap ping in to short- and longterm memory. When peo ple are pushed to explain or clarify lies, they must now either escalate the lies or claim a misunder standing and explain the truth. Then if they choose to escalate the lie, the in dicators that they are lying tend to become more obvious. Knowing what type of lies to look out for can be helpful in spotting these possible untruths. An error is a lie by mis

take. This type of lie is presented by people who believe they are being truthful, but what they are saying is not true. What is said is incorrect, so in this case, the lie is inadvertent. This type of lie represents the most innocent of liars! A lie of omission involves leaving out relevant infor mation. These lies are easy to create and least risky for most people. It doesn’t involve inventing and re membering any stories. It is passive deception, which results in less guilt for the liar. Restructur ing a lie is distorting the context of the statements presented. In other words, the person says something (perhaps in sarcasm), changes the characters, or alters the scene. Restruc turing can be extremely deceptive as the receiv er attempts to figure out which parts of the story are true. Sarcasm employs ambivalence. People often use it to say the opposite of what’s true. Refusing to acknowledge the truth is a lie of denial. The extent of denial can be quite large. The speak er may be lying only to the receiver, just this one time, or they may be lying to themselves. Minimi zation is reducing the effects of a mistake, a fault, or a judgement call. It is a type of deception involv ing denial, coupled with rationalization, in situa tions where complete denial is implausible. It is the opposite of exaggera tion. An exaggeration is a lie presenting something as greater than or better than it really is. People who exaggerate magnify beyond the limits of truth. This is the classic, “I once caught a fish this big!” And finally, fabrication is deliberately inventing a false story. Those who fabricate a story concoct or invent whole or part of a lie, often with the intention to deceive. These people are the ultimate liars…they are lying and they know it. Now that we have dis cussed the types of lies to look out for, next time we will identify the categories of liars and learn how to deal with them.

Lisa Philippart is a Li censed Professional Counselor, who divides her time between her own private practice in Huntsville and providing personal counseling services at Athens State University.