ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with a variety of conditions, disparate in many ways, but in which deception, both of others and the self, plays a part. Deception occupies a central and privileged place in forensic psychiatry. The founding fathers of the speciality, such as Haslam, Ray and East, were all much concerned with the need to recognize fraudulent claims in the accused, the claimant and the conscripted serviceman, to potentially mitigating, compensable or exempting disorders. In pathological lying, there is created a tissue of fantastic lies in which the deception is not merely about matters of fact, but aims to create a whole new identity. Self-deception is a concept presenting profound theoretical ambiguities, but is none the less potentially of wide applicability in psychiatry. Self-deception involves the editing and reorganization of memory to serve the needs of current imperatives. Self-deception may replace conscious lying and dissimulation.
