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 damage his profession, and he’s suing for defamation.

The time period was utilized in courtroom through the testimony of Shannon Curry, PsyD, a medical and forensic psychologist in California and Hawaii, who carried out a psychological analysis of Heard and stated that she met with Heard for 12 hours.

Curry testified that Heard has each borderline persona dysfunction and histrionic persona dysfunction. Heard has stated she has posttraumatic stress dysfunction.

Because of her situation, Heard may be very involved with picture, liable 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 persona dysfunction, and the way does it differ from the opposite, better-known persona issues, reminiscent of paranoid, narcissistic, or obsessive-compulsive?

Histrionic persona dysfunction – histrionic means overly theatrical or melodramatic – tends to be extra frequent in ladies, might be realized or inherited, and comes with “intense, unstable feelings and distorted self-images,” in response to the Cleveland Clinic.

And people with the dysfunction are likely to behave dramatically, depend on different folks’s approval to bolster their shallowness, and have an “overwhelming need 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 rather more generally seen than identified,” she says. “To diagnose somebody with histrionic persona 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, performing very dramatically – as if performing earlier than an viewers – with exaggerated feelings and expressions but showing to lack sincerity, and continually in search of reassurance or approval, in response to the Cleveland Clinic.

Finally, 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 therapy, folks 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 means.

A well being care skilled may additionally prescribe remedy to deal with the despair and nervousness that always include this dysfunction, in response to the Cleveland Clinic.

“It’s good that persons are studying about this psychological time period, however it’s vital to keep away from making an armchair prognosis,” Behr says. “We additionally must 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.”



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