April 29, 2022 – Amid all the eye this month to actor Johnny Depp’s $50 million lawsuit in opposition to ex-wife Amber Heard, a psychological time period has entered the general public’s lexicon: histrionic character dysfunction.
Depp says that an op-ed Heard wrote in 2018 damage his profession, and he’s suing for defamation.
The time period was utilized in court docket in the course of 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 character dysfunction and histrionic character dysfunction. Heard has mentioned she has posttraumatic stress dysfunction.
Attributable to her situation, Heard could be very involved with picture, susceptible to cruelty and blaming others, and unable to confess duty for doing one thing unsuitable, Curry testified, as reported in Newsweek.
So what precisely is histrionic character dysfunction, and the way does it differ from the opposite, better-known character problems, equivalent to paranoid, narcissistic, or obsessive-compulsive?
Histrionic character dysfunction – histrionic means overly theatrical or melodramatic – tends to be extra widespread in girls, could be realized or inherited, and comes with “intense, unstable feelings and distorted self-images,” in accordance with the Cleveland Clinic.
And people with the dysfunction are likely to behave dramatically, depend on different individuals’s approval to bolster their vanity, and have an “overwhelming need to be observed.”
Histrionic character dysfunction is way much less generally identified than narcissistic or borderline character dysfunction, says Jessica January Behr, PsyD, a licensed psychologist in New York Metropolis.
“The standards for the dysfunction might be far more generally seen than identified,” she says. “To diagnose somebody with histrionic character dysfunction, an individual has to fulfill 5 out of 9 very particular standards.”
These 9 standards embrace being uncomfortable except you’re the focus, 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 in search of reassurance or approval, in accordance with the Cleveland Clinic.
In the end, this dysfunction is a severe one, and the label shouldn’t be used except a psychological well being knowledgeable who has evaluated you and carried out sure diagnostic checks confirms it.
For remedy, individuals with the dysfunction will typically search counseling to uncover the motivations and fears related to their ideas and habits, and the counselor will assist the individual study to narrate to others in a extra optimistic approach.
A well being care skilled may additionally prescribe treatment to deal with the despair and nervousness that usually include this dysfunction, in accordance with the Cleveland Clinic.
“It’s good that persons are studying about this psychological time period, but it surely’s essential to keep away from making an armchair analysis,” Behr says. “We additionally must watch out to not conflate ‘dramatic’ and ‘histrionic.’ To have histrionic character dysfunction requires sure standards to be met, and this isn’t a time period for use calmly.”
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