Histrionic Personality Disorder Personality Is the Unique

Histrionic Personality Disorder

Personality is the unique way in which every individual expresses their inner experience and outer behavior. People tend to react a given way every time they experience something and in return express personality traits that come to define who people are. But personalities are not set in stone. They can change according to any given experience, environment, or circumstance that one comes to encounter (Dobbert, 74). The ability to adjust our personalities according to a situation is what people with personality disorders lack. According to the DSM-IV (1994) a Personality Disorder is defined as "an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment" (p. 629). These types of disorders are actually hard to self-recognize but can be easily detected by others. They are categorized as Axle II disorders as they tend to take on a more chronic outcome and can last from its usual diagnosis in adolescence, way into the adult life (Kring et al., 396). It is estimated that between nine and thirteen percent of all adults are afflicted by some sort of personality disorder (O'Donohue et al., 203).

Given the definition of what a personality is deemed to be, there are many different subcategories that place people with varying degrees of deviance and different types of personality disorders. One of them is Histrionic Personality Disorder, once called Hysterical Personality Disorder (Millon et al., 293). People who are diagnosed with this personality disorder are described as always being "on stage." Their emotionally charged being and their seek to be the center of attention tend to always get the better of them and is actually a key component in describing their disorder. They love to exaggerate everyday events by making them into grandiose descriptions with theatrical gestures (Dobbert, 73-86). They can act their way into everything and can actually act like a chameleon who completely change who they are according to a situation, but in a way that they lose who they are entirely, because they lack this sense of being one specific person, of grasping onto their own unique personality.

In order for individuals with Histrionic Personality Disorder to feel loved or acknowledged, they must do everything in the presence of others. They will do anything they can to be that center of attention and will in some cases manipulate others to get what they want. As an addition to their attention seeking behaviors, they will feign illness, whether physical or emotional, in order to get people to pay them any mind (Millon et al., 292-329). Since getting others to notice them is their primary objective, they will do so by any means. They tend to act in a sexual manner to get the attention of the opposite sex and will often view their relationships, whether personal or sexual, as being more in depth than they actually are. This disorder was often described as being the "hysterical wife" syndrome, but that is no longer the case as it was revealed that a lot of gender bias existed in the times when these conclusions were drawn (O'Donohue, 203-232). This disorder actually affects both genders equally and equals about two percent of the entire population (Dobbert, 74).

Histrionic Personality Disorder has been analyzed many times over by psychologists and theorists alike. Because of Histrionic Personality Disorders' deep roots in hysteria, theorists tend to view this disorder form the psychodynamic perspective (Millon et al., 202-329). These psychodynamic theorists believe that this disorder manifests in a person's childhood and is the result or cold inattentive parenting. This type of parenting left the children wanting more out of their future relationships since their parents left them feeling unloved and abandoned (Dobbert, 73-86). In an attempt to fulfill all these needs, these individuals instinctively adapted to behave in extreme manners and exaggerated and invented their crises in order to make people feel protective of them. They seek these protective behaviors from others as a way of feeling whole (Kring et al., 396). Although gender bias was deemed to be a problem, psychodynamic theorists tend to focus on female patients in their explanation of Histrionic Personality Disorder. They view their illness as a result of lack of nurturance from their mothers, and explain their extreme flirtatious and dramatic behavior as an intense need to get the attention of their fathers (O'Donohue, 203-232). This in turn manifests in their later relationships as they constantly seek the attention of a man by seeking a father figure. Females with Histrionic Personality Disorder are described as entering adulthood as "unhappy little girls" looking for father and men that could easily be manipulated by them.

Another theory explaining the development of Histrionic Personality Disorder in individuals is through the Cognitive Perspective. Cognitive theorists look at explaining this disorder by focusing on the lack of structure and excessive suggestibility found in people with this disorder. These individuals are so focused on themselves and on how they are going to be viewed by others, that they lose complete interest in the outside world and how others are being affected by their behaviors (Millon et al., 315-317). Because they are unable to grasp onto learned concepts that would allow them to remember and shape how they should act, they instead heavily rely on others to constantly guide them through life. They rely so much on other individuals, that they lose the sense of who they are themselves. They never quite develop a unique personality. Other theorists in the Cognitive field also propose that individuals afflicted with this disorder lack the ability to believe that they can care for themselves without the help of others (Millon et al., 315-317). Because of this, they rely heavily on the attention that people give them, and grow to believe that the only way they will ever be able to live is by solely depending on other people.

Finally, the sociocultural perspective views Histrionic Personality Disorder as being the product of society's norms and expectations. Failure to live up to these expectations on their own, they seek other people to do it for them. Also, females were once taught that they needed to hold on to their sense of childhood and dependency when they grew up, that their vain, selfish and exaggerated behavior can be a manifestation of these societal and cultural beliefs of femininity (Millon et al., 311-314).

Treatments for Histrionic Personality Disorder are actually more developed than all other personality disorders, as they are the group to actually seek help themselves the most because of their extreme outright noticeable behavior. However, they are the most difficult to work with because it can become difficult for a therapist to actually recognize when they are prevailing in their treatment. Since individuals with Histrionic Personality Disorder can so easily adapt to situations and put on acts in order to please the other person, they will sometimes demonstrate progress and understandability in their treatment just to please their therapist. It must be essential for any health professional working with these individuals to remain objective and professional at all times for any progress to be made (Millon et al., 324).