histrionic personality disorder
Sign in to saveAlso known as hysterical personality, hysterical personality disorder, psychoinfantile personality, psychoinfantile personality disorder, HPD
personality disorder characterized by excessive emotionality and attention-seeking
Key facts
- Specialty
- Clinical psychology , psychiatry
- Symptoms
- Persistent attention seeking , dramatic behavior , rapidly shifting and shallow emotions, sexually provocative behavior, undetailed style of speech , and a tendency to consider relationships more intimate than they actually are
- Usual onset
- Symptoms typically do not fully develop until late teens or early 20s
- Duration
- Lifelong
- Causes
- Authoritarian parenting , highly responsive noradrenergic systems, genetics , childhood trauma
- Diagnostic method
- Based on symptoms
- Differential diagnosis
- Other personality disorders , particularly borderline and narcissistic types; bipolar disorder ; personality change due to another medical condition ; symptoms stemming from substance use disorders ; illness anxiety disorder ; and somatic symptom disorder
- Treatment
- Functional analytic psychotherapy , functional ideographic assessment template, and coding client and therapist behaviors
via Wikipedia infobox
~21 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive attention-seeking behaviors, usually beginning in adolescence or early adulthood, including inappropriate seduction and an excessive desire for approval.
People with HPD have a high desire for attention, make loud and inappropriate appearances, exaggerate their behaviors and emotions, and crave stimulation. They very often exhibit pervasive and persistent sexually provocative behavior, express strong emotions with an impressionistic style, and can be easily influenced by others. Associated features can include egocentrism, self-indulgence, continuous longing for appreciation, and persistent manipulative behavior to achieve their own wants.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “histrionic personality disorder” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.