Fake Cancer Fraud | Coco Berthmann Case Analysis | What is Pathological Lying?

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hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the case of coco birthman just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoy this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i will put a link to patreon in the description for this video first i'll look at the background in this case then i'll move to my analysis coco birthman was born in germany on september 12 1993. her real name is sandra renata ruff she changed her name to coco birthman in 2013. in 2015 she graduated from high school and moved to new york city to be a nanny she returned to germany in 2016 then moved to las vegas in 2017 here again she worked as a nanny coco started making a number of phenomenal claims sometime around 2018 which helped establish her as a human rights advocate around this time she was a college student in utah and stayed with a family she had a few jobs in utah she worked as a social media specialist and is a digital marketing program assistant eventually she earned an associate's degree in marketing here are a few examples of claims that coco made which have attracted a good deal of attention coco claimed that she was a victim of human trafficking this occurred from her childhood until november 2 2009 she was 15 years old at this time this is when she ran away from home while listening to the music of celine dion specifically the song taking chances when coco was 12 years old she claimed that she witnessed her older half-sister being stabbed to death by her stepfather she said that her mother forced her to watch the murder by holding her head after her sister was murdered she was forced to remain in the room with the dead body coco said on another occasion she was forced to help murder her younger brother by suffocating him with a pillow coco claimed that she wasn't actually born in germany she was born in bulgaria here's how this story goes when she was working in las vegas in 2017 she attended a university class in salt lake city utah it was for nannies the instructor for the class was a missionary for the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints which i will refer to as lds the missionary appears to have made an impression on coco coco said that she returned to las vegas and received a call from her attorney she was advised that she really wasn't born in germany after all she was born in bulgaria and was cared for in an orphanage there coco called the instructor in utah to tell her the news the woman said that she served as a missionary in bulgaria from 1992 to 1994 and of course coco was born in 1993. coco when the woman who koko referred to as her spiritual mother did some research and discover that the woman actually held coco as an infant in the orphanage an amazing and unbelievable coincidence this led coco to convert to the lds church later of course coco claims her mother returned to the orphanage and picked her up otherwise coco's story about how she grew up would not make any sense interestingly coco later left the lds church coco was able to use her claims to become a somewhat well-known human rights advocate many media outlets have reported on her amazing story it is considered inspirational to many people the only problem for coco is that she is not being honest let's take a look at some of the evidence that contradicts her claims coco's mother denied that coco was ever a victim of the crimes that coco indicated she said that she had ongoing contact with her daughter long after coco supposedly escaped in 2009 she even has a photograph taken in 2015 when coco was leaving to go to new york in addition her mother visited coco in new york city in 2016. koko's mother filed a defamation claim in germany against her daughter but cannot afford to do so in the united states coco's older half-sister is alive and resides in germany which means that coco was lying or her half-sister made an amazing recovery like resurrection level amazing coco's brother is alive as well it appears as though the miracles will never cease how about coco's bulgaria story the spiritual mother told a reporter that coco is a very good liar with a history of extensive fabrications my favorite part of coco's bulgaria story is how she said she found out about it from her attorney we're supposed to believe that she has this lawyer who's like i don't really have anything else to do today therefore i'm going to spend some time researching the places of birth of my clients who knows what i'll find do a lot of attorneys really have time for this activity is that considered a productive use of billable hours in january of 2022 coco came up with a new claim she told a friend of hers that she had stage three mantle cell lymphoma which is a type of cancer she was receiving treatment at the huntsman cancer institute and had met with specialists in alaska and chicago in february her friend started a gov fund me which raised more than ten thousand dollars in a few weeks the authorities investigated coco's claims after receiving a tip that she was faking cancer they could not find any evidence that she was treated at the facility that she indicated some of the physicians that she mentioned had never heard of her one physician was a specialist in the area of ptsd he did treat her but it was for anxiety coco told the authorities she would send medical records supporting her claim but she never did the police confronted her and she changed her story now she said she was seeking treatment at a different facility called the intermountain medical center coco birthman was arrested for communications fraud in connection with her claims about having cancer but the time making this video she has not been formally charged after her arrest she told the authorities that she had medical documentation in a drawer at her residence she directed them to this location they searched it and found plenty of documents but nothing related to a cancer diagnosis now moving to my analysis coco birthman seems to have trouble telling the truth it's almost like she just can't help lying in addition to the major false claims that coco birthman has made she has made a number of other statements that potentially indicate deception for example she said that she was invited to perform with celine dion later she admitted that was a lie she said that when she was growing up she was not allowed to read the bible she claimed that a friend of hers named tony had died of cancer when tony decided to attend an event where coco was present she changed her story and said that it was actually tony's friend who died of cancer so there's a bit of a discrepancy there coco claims that she is becoming an international human rights attorney she was contacted by america's got talent to appear on the next season she claims that her mother has sent people to the united states to kill her and she said that 80 percent of the customers for human trafficking are american men and it is a 53 trillion dollar a year industry just to put that in perspective this is higher than the gross national product of the united states china the united kingdom and germany combined coco has indicated that sometimes she is deceptive because of her traumatic experiences so again it appears she's willing to admit that some of her statements are deceptive this brings me to the question what was coco's motive for all this deception in this case we see an individual who just kept lying without any regard for how outrageous and unsupported her claims were typically a person lying for some type of material gain will only tell lies that have a reasonable chance of being convincing the lie has to be difficult to falsify and not so unlikely as to attract scrutiny so it has to be plausible they tend to avoid changing fundamental aspects of their story for example they would not change their place of birth if somebody is lying for a reason other than material gain like due to narcissistic or histrionic traits they are often less cautious the lies are quite plentiful the person just keeps telling different stories to different people if people start to compare notes they detect the inconsistencies coco has transmitted her false claims to a wide audience she has recorded videos and given public talks it is important for her if she wants to get away with her deception to keep her story simple and unchanging also adding new features to the story like a fake cancer diagnosis only draws more suspicion whatever coco's motive for lying is she isn't very good at it the behavior in this case seems to align more with attention seeking as a motive as opposed to material gain although there is no way to know for sure coco did ask people for financial help for a fake cancer diagnosis so there does appear to be some financial motive but for the most part she seems to be trying to attract attention even her fake cancer diagnosis could be thought of as attention seeking more so than to gain money moving to the next question some people have accused coco of being a pathological liar what leads to pathological lying what is the nature of this condition here i'm speaking in general not specifically about coco birthman the concept of pathological lying has been around for many years it is sometimes called pseudologia fantastica there is quite a bit of disagreement about the nature of the condition the main dispute on this topic is about whether pathological liars tell lies consciously or unconsciously on the side of suggesting lying is a deliberate act theorists say the condition is related to personality pathology on the side of suggesting the behavior is done unconsciously theorists argue the condition is an extension of fantasy like a person loses the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy essentially the person is delusional there is this idea that people who pathologically lie want the lies to be true this is sometimes called wish psychosis the person actually derives pleasure from lying because it connects them to their fancy world it keeps them in that world they do not have to face reality as long as they stay there the pathological liar is trapped and overwhelmed by their own lies so even though they enjoy doing it it does come with consequences that are uncomfortable one could make a good argument that both schools of thought explain pathological lying perhaps both are true to some extent there is a degree of intentionality and a degree of fantasy from the point of view of psychopathology there are a number of disorders and conditions associated specifically with pathological lying a few examples factitious disorder the imposed on others version of this disorder sometimes referred to as munchausen syndrome by proxy we see malingering which is not a disorder it's a condition all four cluster b personality disorders anti-social narcissistic borderline and histrionic and any disorder associated with delusions like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder regardless of how one conceptualizes pathological lying it seems clear that people who have it suffer greatly they are rarely successful in the long run and repeatedly create trust issues in relationships the effectiveness of mental health treatment is often somewhat dependent on a client being honest which makes treating this condition particularly difficult moving to the last question why was coco birthman effective at manipulating people we see that a few media outlets published her false claims without bothering to investigate her story at all despite it being fairly clear that she was being deceptive there is something about when a person claims to be a victim which makes people reluctant to challenge them in this day and age with the propagation of cancer culture no one wants to be the person who challenges somebody like coco birthman her story was very tragic and sad in addition people understandably want to help victims therefore when somebody claims to be a victim the first feeling is compassion as opposed to doubt as long as there are topics in society that are exempt from scrutiny and immune to rational decision making there will be con artists like coco birthman in a sense she stands as a reminder that all claims should be viewed with healthy and appropriate skepticism exceptions to this policy will invariably lead to deception and fraud those are my thoughts in the case of coco birthman please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis on this topic to be informative thanks for watching
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Channel: Dr. Todd Grande
Views: 99,317
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Length: 13min 25sec (805 seconds)
Published: Mon Mar 21 2022
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