April 29, 2022 – Amid all the eye this month to actor Johnny Depp’s $50 million lawsuit towards ex-wife Amber Heard, a psychological time period has entered the general public’s lexicon: histrionic persona dysfunction.
Depp says that an op-ed Heard wrote in 2018 harm his profession, and he’s suing for defamation.
The time period was utilized in courtroom throughout the testimony of Shannon Curry, PsyD, a scientific and forensic psychologist in California and Hawaii, who carried out a psychological analysis of Heard and mentioned that she met with Heard for 12 hours.
Curry testified that Heard has each borderline persona dysfunction and histrionic persona dysfunction. Heard has mentioned she has posttraumatic stress dysfunction.
Because of her situation, Heard may be very involved with picture, susceptible to cruelty and blaming others, and unable to confess accountability for doing one thing mistaken, Curry testified, as reported in Newsweek.
So what precisely is histrionic persona dysfunction, and the way does it differ from the opposite, better-known persona problems, resembling paranoid, narcissistic, or obsessive-compulsive?
Histrionic persona dysfunction – histrionic means overly theatrical or melodramatic – tends to be extra widespread in girls, will be discovered or inherited, and comes with “intense, unstable feelings and distorted self-images,” based on the Cleveland Clinic.
And people with the dysfunction are inclined to behave dramatically, depend on different individuals’s approval to bolster their vanity, and have an “overwhelming want to be seen.”
Histrionic persona dysfunction is way much less generally identified than narcissistic or borderline persona dysfunction, says Jessica January Behr, PsyD, a licensed psychologist in New York Metropolis.
“The factors for the dysfunction might be far more generally seen than identified,” she says. “To diagnose somebody with histrionic persona dysfunction, an individual has to satisfy 5 out of 9 very particular standards.”
These 9 standards embrace being uncomfortable except you’re the focal point, your feelings shifting quickly, appearing very dramatically – as if performing earlier than an viewers – with exaggerated feelings and expressions but showing to lack sincerity, and continuously searching for reassurance or approval, based on the Cleveland Clinic.
In the end, this dysfunction is a critical one, and the label shouldn’t be used except a psychological well being knowledgeable who has evaluated you and carried out sure diagnostic exams confirms it.
For remedy, individuals with the dysfunction will usually search counseling to uncover the motivations and fears related to their ideas and habits, and the counselor will assist the particular person be taught to narrate to others in a extra constructive method.
A well being care skilled may also prescribe medicine to deal with the despair and anxiousness that always include this dysfunction, based on the Cleveland Clinic.
“It’s good that individuals are studying about this psychological time period, nevertheless it’s necessary to keep away from making an armchair analysis,” Behr says. “We additionally should watch out to not conflate ‘dramatic’ and ‘histrionic.’ To have histrionic persona dysfunction requires sure standards to be met, and this isn’t a time period for use flippantly.”
