Histrionic Personality Disorder

What is "histrionic personality disorder"?

Histrionic personality disorder is characterized by an excessive emotionality as well as a pattern of attention seeking. It's important to note that the attention seeking doesn't have to all be good attention. Patients with histrionic personality disorder often operate that any attention is better than no attention at all.

What are the signs of histrionic personality disorder?

A person with histrionic personality disorder is going to be attention seeking. That attention does not have to be good attention, it can be bad attention. Any attention at all is better than none. They need to be the center of attention. They will be constantly drawing attention to themselves. They will make scenes or create uproar. They are often quite suductive and co-quetish. They may control relationships by being very dramatic and theatrical. They can appeare very needy and dependant. These patients also play hunches, they are not very cognitive. That is not to say that they are not intelligent, but they often make their desicions based on how they feel about things. They do not like routine and they get bored easily. They will often start projects with an enormous amount of enthusiasim only to never finish it. They will start the relationships with people and then drop them. They will drop you like a hot rock if something more interesting comes up. In addition it is important to know that pateints with histrionic personality disorder, despite the fact that they are very emotional and incredibly dramatic, one of the things that is always a que for me as the interveiwer or the physciatrist, is that I'll have someone who is expressing a lot of intense emotion and I will find myself curiosly unmoved by that. So there is sort of a disgenous despite what appears to be an intensity of feeling involved, and I think that that should be a que. They appear somewhat insincere despite the fact that they're claiming to have a lot of intense feeling. That would apply to their relationships with people as well, they often will tell you that they characterize relationships as much more intimate than they actually are. In other words you'll be talking to some one and she'll be like oh she's my best friend and you just met her last week.

What are the causes of histrionic personality disorder?

I don't know of any convincing evidence that there's anything like a histrionic personality disorder. histrionic personality disorder is thought to be much more common in women than men. And that may just be a social thing, is that women can act histrionically and get away with it a little more easily than men.

What are the dangers of histrionic personality disorder?

I think the dangers of this disorder is that despite the fact that these patients really do crave intimacy and closeness with other people is that by virtue of their personality disorder they're never going to get that. People tire of their theatrics after a while and their apparent disingenuousness. Occupationally, I guess it might be possible for them to function quite well if that sort of theatrical drama was required by the job or they had a job in which their behavior was tolerated somewhat.

What are the treatments of histrionic personality disorder?

There aren't any established treatments of histrionic personality disorder that work uniformly. I think being histrionic puts you at risk of developing mood disorders, patients with histrionic personality disorder get depressed pretty easily. If you meet requirements for major depressive disorder, you should be treated with anti-depressants. I think the major treatment for histrionic personality disorder would be inside-oriented psychotherapy, trying to get the person to develop some insight into the link between their histrionic behaviour and people's reactions to them.