Histrionic personality disorder: seductiveness and attention-seeking
Histrionic personality disorder: seductiveness and attention-seeking
How does a person with histrionic personality disorder behave? What are the similarities and differences with other personality disorders? What can online therapy do?
Histrionic personality disorder is distinguished from other disorders by the excessive search for attention, excessive emotionality, and seductiveness with an aftertaste of theatricality. These are people who love to put themselves at the center of attention by displaying excessive and artificial attitudes. We are used to hearing about “histrionic personalities” referring to eccentric and exuberant personalities. In the world of entertainment, these personalities are appreciated, while in everyday life they are considered fake to the point of creating distrust and suspicion. After all, in ancient Rome, the “histriones” were actors, comedians. Appreciation was directed at their interpretive skills, which amused by eliciting positive emotions in the audience.
How to recognize Histrionic Personality Disorder
When we talk about histrionic personality disorder we must keep in mind certain characteristics that go on to worsen quality of life in the family, work, emotional, and social spheres:
- Search for approval: continuous attempts to attract attention in order to get support and approval from others with evident discomfort if they do not succeed;
- Excessive seductiveness: seductiveness is a constant behavior and is exercised to gain protection and seek closeness. At the base there is no real sexual desire;
- Uncontrolled emotions: the way of expressing oneself is superficial and unstable. Emotions are dramatized and are uncontrolled, very often resulting in theatricality even for minor things;
- physical appearance as a tool to attract attention: dressing eccentrically, seeking compliments and fearing criticism;
- speaks in an impressionistic way and without details: when having to tell a story they add emphasis, theatricality and drama while neglecting the content;
- Superficiality in relationships: they live relationships superficially. They often mistake newly started emotional relationships for intimacy. Even in friendships they may be not very careful and see a friendship in a deeper way than it is in reality.
Being an egosyntonic disorder, the histrionic person does not perceive their behavior as a problem and does not think they are considered superficial by others.
Histrionic disorder compared with other personality disorders
Narcissistic personality disorder
As very often happens, histrionic personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder can be diagnosed together, but there are differences.
Narcissistic disorder is in constant search of approval and attention just as in histrionic disorder, except that in the former it serves to reinforce the grandiose self, while in the latter fragilities and vulnerabilities may be shown.
Borderline personality disorder
Here too, the two disorders can be diagnosed together, but one must distinguish well in the diagnosis whether it is histrionic disorder or borderline disorder.
Borderline disorder, while showing a search for attention and emotionality taken to the extreme, has other diagnostic criteria that differentiate it from histrionic disorder, including: substance abuse, risky sexual intercourse, self-harming gestures, a great sense of emptiness, and manifestations of anger that abruptly interrupt relationships of any kind.
How the “histrionic” behaves in relationships
A personality with histrionic behavior desires to have relationships and, to achieve the goal, uses seductive behavior aimed at sexual conquest, even with strangers. In this way the histrionic aspires to receive care and closeness. The real problem is the way of entering into relationship that remains superficial and never enters into deep intimacy with the partner or in a friendship.
The seductive attitude is used inappropriately in all contexts, from work to friendships, pushing others away.
The emotional suffering of the histrionic personality is strong when they feel abandoned and rejected by others, experiencing a sense of emptiness and loneliness. They are people who feel wrong for not being able to maintain lasting relationships. As in narcissistic personality disorder, they are people who need new emotions and stimuli and get bored easily, finding it hard to stay in a long-term relationship. They have difficulty loving because relationships are experienced only superficially.
The mask and the lies
People with histrionic personality disorder behave in an inauthentic way in relationships by inventing stories about themselves, exaggerating their emotional state and pretending to be ill to attract attention.
They wear a mask that serves to make them more attractive and charismatic in the eyes of others. If at first they manage to attract people to themselves through these behaviors, later they are accused of being pathological liars, generating others’ withdrawal. The mask falls and a fragile and immature personality emerges.
Withdrawals can cause depressive states from not feeling recognized, awakening the old wound.
The disorder originates in childhood when one did not feel recognized in one’s needs by parents and was seen only when one was ill and in need of care. To receive care they had to learn to attract their parents’ attention by showing seductive behaviors or pretending to be ill.
The lack of care and love in childhood induces these people to seek others’ approval by wearing a mask; if this is not enough they will come to dramatize physical discomfort in order to receive the care and love desired.
The fear of abandonment or separation in relationships and a lack of identity lead these people to try to conform to the other’s will to maintain the relationship.
What can online therapy do?
Since histrionic disorder is egosyntonic, the person who suffers from it does not perceive their behavior as a problem. For this reason, support from family members, friends and partners is very important.
Online therapy can help a person with histrionic disorder to look more closely at their wound by facing that ancient pain with the help of a therapist capable of being a sensitive and empathetic “good parent.”
During the therapeutic course, the person suffering from this disorder will have moments of crisis that will have to be faced in the relationship with the therapist. Support from relatives, friends and partners will be requested to provide support in change. The personality with histrionic behavior will have to move from a superficial relational mode to a deeper one, trying to enter into intimacy with the other without the fear of being rejected and abandoned.
Online therapy will strive to bring out in the person suffering from histrionic disorder a more authentic personality, where the lies and masks that kept the disorder alive must give way to a personality that gives itself that value that was not recognized in childhood by parental figures. There will no longer be a need to use seduction to enter into relationship with the other and there will be no need to prove something by seeking approval or creating dramas.
Positive and negative emotions will have to be rediscovered to reconnect with one’s inner part so that they can be used as a compass to better know the world. In addition to an individual therapy path, it is also advisable to undertake an online group psychotherapy path, for adults who were victims of childhood abuse.
For those who have an emotional relationship with a person who suffers from histrionic disorder, it would be useful to do online couples therapy and request individual therapeutic support to manage the relationship while avoiding losing one’s personal balance.
For information write to Dr. Jessica Zecchini.
Email contact consulenza@jessicazecchini.it, whatsapp contact 370 32 17 351
