Histrionic Personality Disorder | The Signs

[Music] do you know anyone who's overly attention seeking overly theatrical or the life of the party well according to dr romini that person could have histrionic personality disorder or at the very least histrionic traits in this episode you'll learn how to recognize the behaviors of the condition and how to cope with those behaviors on the break i said this feels a lot like borderline personality disorder very different and it's very different very different so for a lot of our viewers have watched our series on borderline personalities or let's i really want to separate this for them remember borderline personality disorder the dysregulated emotion the emotions that shift rapidly the real inner sense of torment there is such a subjective sense of discomfort the sense that that they're going to be abandoned and that's accompanied by a feeling of panicking borderline personality disorder right that's borderline yes okay okay now where it can get confusing is that you might have an individual with borderline personality disorder who in devaluing themselves so much and wanting so much to get into a relationship they will be very sort of seductive and attention seeking in their presentation right and they were hoping in that looking like that being like that somebody won't leave them so their motivation it's not a tension it's to create this really all-encompassing union with somebody who won't leave them yes and there's this chronic sense of panic a person with histrionic personality disorder is not experiencing that torment that panic that fear of abandonment they may they would be very uncomfortable if they were alone people with histrionic personality disorder need an audience people with borderline personality disorder need a partner yes you you i got it when on the break when you said kyle if you weren't giving me attention i'll just go over here and get it yes if i would yes i don't have to it has yours yes yes for histrionic personality like i said that's the idea of an audience i don't care who's in the audience as long as all eyes are on me there may be someone in that audience i like a little better but there's probably a few of them for the person with borderline personality they very much catheter they really get focused on that one person their person and it's like a mother right so that's a lot of what we look at the earlier theoretical writings on borderline personality it's about that there's something very interrupted in that early attachment of some kind histrionic personality likely has some of that attachment issue but it's not with the depth and the torment this is where to meet borderline personality disorder clinically it's such an important to understand this disorder or pattern because of how much torment the person is experiencing they're in a lot of inner pain i think a person with histrionic personality can get hurt if people are pushed back on it or rejecting of them but it won't be that i mean um literally suicidal pain i mean person has if i get rejected there's an amount of hurt that's normal that's normal but it's the you always want to look in any psychiatric pattern you want to think also in terms of motivations at least that's how i look at it you know with the personality patterns in particular what are some of the motivators here what are the key traits that are sort of playing out and so it's different this is really about getting attention and now it's almost like you're you only exist by your audience like the more audience you've got the more you exist it's a bit of an existential conundrum let's go right into the diagnostic criteria for histrionic personality disorder the first one we've talked about at center of attention and how does this manifest itself they'll do whatever they need to do to get that attention whether it's usually it's their appearance nine times out of ten it's their appearance and it's they they often take a lot very good care of themselves they go to the gym and they work out they might get you know cosmetic surgeries or modifications very careful with their appearance they may dress very seductively or very expensively but whatever they do they're going to make sure all eyes are on them maybe also how they talk about themselves they may talk about oh my celebrity friend this or i just came back from this grand adventure there or and they will exaggerate the truth a little bit to make sure their story is the biggest and the best story is this done consciously yeah i mean they want to make sure they're getting attention so if they're if just the way they're dressed isn't working then they're definitely going to they're going to tell the story in a way that they keep ensuring the eyes are on them the second one is being sexually seductive yes how does that look so that links into that first one right the way to get attention is to be seductive but again it's a it's almost like a win right if you know most people are you know we're not going to be ultra seductive but a lot of it is if it may not just be their style of dress it's also going to be in how they talk about things you know that they're going to be you know almost talk about things moderately inappropriate you know talk about sexual things be very sort of you know flirty in how they talk that's definitely going to get you attention you know and they're sort of equal opportunity to flirt as well for men women regardless of their sexual orientation so and then that way they really can own a room and get a lot of attention for that so yeah they're very and it is i would say of all of the disorders we will ever hear about in med circle the most seductive this is the most this is the most seductive in terms of how they present themselves it is a seduction disorder and if they are married it doesn't keep them from oh heck no no and it can really be i mean i've worked with couples like this where the one would say this is kind of uncomfortable you know like i think my wife or i think my wife's gorgeous but it's hard when like everyone's eyes are kind of popping out over her because she's dressed in this way and so it's it's kind of a mixed blessing if you will and so it's there is that because it's not like they're being humble about it like that person's working thank you no they're working it they're out now there are plenty of spouses who love when their spouse is the center of attention great so could two people who have histrionic personalities be really compatible that way you know i think at some point there's just gonna be way too much air in the room like it's just too much you know it's a i you know the only reason it could potentially work is they're never really gonna talk about much it's gonna really be kind of and maybe neither one would be bothered by the superficiality of it all right but i will tell you this in no couple is it ever going to be even and the day one person's getting more attention than the other all hell is going to break loose so of course it's never and this is where like for example if you have two stars in a relationship if one person's star is going up and the other one's not getting so many of the a-list gigs that's going to cause friction that's an example of what happens when two histrionic individuals get into a relationship fascinating number three is shifting emotions yes this is the one that made me think oh this is like borderline personality the shifting emotions is sort of that one overlap trait that can give it some resemblance to a borderline personality pattern by shifting emotions because their emotion is so shallow it can quickly go to meet whatever is happening in the room an example i've used maybe a lot of our viewers won't get this because they don't live in los angeles the weather in los angeles is historical of a hot hot day it'll still get cool at night because our the way our weather is it just doesn't hold it it lacks depth because there's no humidity it's like they don't have humidity they they will be with a friend who's kind of having a tough day and they're able to be there and nod wisely um god that sounds so hard yeah i'm so sorry and there'll be a little pouty but then someone comes in the room whose attention they may like more who's cheerful and they'll pop right into cheerful so they'll be kyle i'm so sorry i'm so sorry hey how what and that's not normal that's the shift it's the shift in response whereas in a personal borderline personality that shift is happening internally there's nothing in the environment you're like why did that just happen but for a person with histrionic personality that shift is often in response to the external stimuli and demands in their environment we've talked about the next one a lot physical appearance they look good they look good they do and they and but the thing is they invest so much time like these are the people who are going to the gym because this is how they get attention and even at the gym they go to the gym in full hair and makeup they buy they spend more on their workout clothes and i think that i once upon a time did on a wedding dress i mean like it's like the everything 500 exercise ensemble and they look like they look fantastic at the gym everyone is staring at them and it's like they're like a peacock on the treadmill you know because i used to go to a really expensive gym and i was because i'm basketball shorts and a t-shirt right and then i'm looking around i go oh yeah i have to oh yeah get it together if i'm gonna go here yeah yeah so i have to go to a pre-gym so i'm acceptable enough to go to the real the showtime yeah so yeah very much physical appearance matters and not only do they over value it in themselves they overvalue it in other people oh yeah so go into more detail so they may not want a friend that's kind of frumpy or not well put together yeah like they're like you know this is the person who will reject the bridesmaid for not being a size eight or under you know it's that like my wedding's gonna look a certain way so here's your diet and i expect you to fit this dress or maybe we'll have you do a reading being being a good person is that important to them in in somebody else no no not as much it's more about status physical appearance what you can do for them yes yes what about speech style speech style is interesting it's what we call that it's it the way we describe it diagnostically it's highly impressionistic and it lacks detail okay what that means is they say a lot of words but they don't say anything so yeah i'm sort of feeling this energetic movement there's a rise in me i'm just trying to do me and feel it out and find me doing me loving me and you're like oh wow what is that like you know and so there is a it's it's very there's a lot a lot of there there and you'll see this in people sometimes who are over subscribed to sort of certain like healing communities and like there's just what are you trying to do and they're not able to clearly articulate a goal an outcome a process like if you're trying to get something done this is not the person you want on your team you know that they'll talk very ephemerally about stuff but there's not so the it's and again there's it's superficial right they it's not they cannot speak deeply because they do not really feel deeply so it is this sort of again the style that's impressionistic so i understand it the speech pattern of this vagueness it's vagueness exactly comes from the fact that they don't feel deeply they're not connected to that you know there's a because they're not clear on their motives you've got to remember this with a person with most cluster b personality disorders we as we've talked about yeah we haven't we need to redefine cluster b yeah so cluster b personality disorders are personality patterns that characterized by dramatic erratic emotional behavior and very few of those patterns do the people have any insight they lack insight and this means narcissistic borderline antisocial as we're talking about now histrionic but they're very unclear on their own motivations they just don't know what they are they're not even clear why they're doing what they're doing because what they're not able to do is say hey the only thing that matters to me is everyone thinks i'm the hottest chick in the room and i guess who's going to say that right because even they have enough insight to know that's not what you're supposed to say and they're not in touch with that motive so when you're not in touch with your motivations you're not actually able to speak or behave clearly so if they were running a business could and you said what's your goal for next year i want to be the best cupcake store in los angeles and and they're like how are you going to you know we're posting on instagram we have a new chocolate cupcake yeah just use it it's very like you know they'll have these and many times the kinds of businesses are running are very much cupcakey very superficially like cosmetics and accessories i'm not saying those aren't important things i know they matter to the people who make them but they are very you know they're not trying to build carburetors right okay so it's very much that kind of like showy sort of a business and so what they'll be we're going to put it on instagram and maybe i can get that billboard and i'm going to try a new recipe or this is going to be pink you know that's not a goal mm-hmm you know so it's very it's almost like when a child makes a lemonade stand it can all often have that sort of like childlike motivation to it but it can get confusing if you're talking to them because you're like what are they saying i can't i don't understand what their point is and you might actually over misinterpret as being deep you know like oh they're talking about all this energy and stuff and you're like got it yeah but instead you just really say what come out and say like what are you saying i'm so fascinated by the speech part of it yeah i think that's because it's a probably a quicker way to i mean all these are really fast center of attention sexually seductive shifting emotions physical appearance speech style they're all surfacy already all of these traits yep yep dramatic behavior dramatic behavior so this would be like they'll wear it these are people who wear capes and feathered polos what's wrong with the cape and a feather bowl up not i don't know trainer jokes you know there's a time in a place so they definitely are very theatrical and there's a lot of you know you feel like you're in a wagner opera like there's a lot of emotion and what do you mean there aren't enough candles we must have 82 on the cake you know there's a lot of this like operatic can you please turn everything she just did into a gif internet i need to see all of that as much as possible okay so they're very dramatic very dramatic it's like being in it's like performance art when they come to your house okay so let me tell you the story i do so many of these interviews i've exhausted my wardrobe okay like i just i don't have enough clothes so i go and i'm looking online another friend who's on camera he sends me this website and all of the clothes are pretty extravagant and there's this one like pink furry shirt jacket and i said it to him as a joke like wouldn't this be appropriate for me sitting down and he goes oh yeah you should get that i go no there's no way i could that's to hear that that's histrionic clothing but there's a part of me though that would like not for this but if if if a friend was having a birthday i'm like i'm gonna wait this is fun okay but see then the pink jacket but if you expected people to attend like let's say it wasn't a pink jacket party you know like it was a state affair like a brunch at a high end hotel and you show up in your pink jacket or you wore the pink jacket to a funeral where people weren't dressing like that like it would show a lack of insight that you what are you trying to show but they're very it's big big gestures they'll show up to a baby shower with a gift that's like seven feet tall that's proceeding they'll roll it in on a carriage like their gifts are big their gestures are big big big exciting dramatic and you'll often feel almost overwhelmed by it all and sometimes people feel guilty like oh my god they're giving me a seven foot present i should be nicer about this okay and everyone sometimes i just have to laugh okay it's a lot of mental health to take in every week um it's because i'm laughing because i know these people right i know this i know i'm literally thinking of this one woman i go i didn't know before but now i know we all do and yeah i always and when we talk about how to manage it i do have it's a very compassionate take on it you know suggestibility yeah so i mean these are the people who who go in for the sucker bet every single time they are it's very easy to convince them of magical things in this way they're dangerously vulnerable to things like cults or organizations that are trying to recruit members that almost like have a pyramid scheme feel to them they're very they'll buy whatever you're selling they can be drawn into sort of fringe religious communities that kind of thing they're very um again there's an innocence to them you mentioned time shares time shares any kind of a bad investment oh heck yeah histrionic people fall for that in a second like you're going to get to go on a cruise with all of your other cosmetic selling friends you know it's culty they're drawn to that kind of stuff and they're because they're suggestible just like a child would be and think about it a child is still learning their emotional depth that's why we can trick them into santa claus and tooth fairies and all of those fantasies they're still impressionable as they get a greater capacity for critical thinking the child tends to reject that on their own i've noticed that by and large many people with histrionic personality disorder lack as much of a capacity for critical thinking as would be expected for someone at their stage so that they'll fall for conspiracy theories online they'll fall for ridiculous bargains online and that can put them in trouble financially they can put themselves at harm or risk give away their information waste time waste something person who gets an email from the prince of some african country maybe not you know what their his their their suggestibility is often happens in a self-serving way it could be the african country look someone wants to give me a million dollars but it can also be like let's go back to that vague kind of style of speech these people are going to help me harness all my inner energy and let my demons go so i can love i don't know what is that like what group is this and they're asking you 10 grand for that for 10 grand i'll do that for you too right you know and so it's there is this sense of getting drawn into schemes and and and a lot of people take advantage of that like they can it's almost like you can see them coming in their eyes are a little wider they're more vulnerable to that again they don't think critically because there's almost a child-like quality to this the last one is overestimation of intimacy yes the overestimation of intimacy one is a very interesting one especially in our modern times they think a relationship is much closer than it really is they'll meet someone at a party they'll exchange numbers whether intimately or as friends and they'll think we're best friends so like the next day it's like hey love meeting you last night coffee three o'clock or they'll get your address and also you're getting gifts from them they'll in conversation with other people they'll talk about you as though you are their best friend they'll go on a date they'll call the person their boyfriend so there's this fast forward and it's interesting this dynamic can also play out let's say they meet someone famous they love famous people they meet someone famous in i don't know a bar or club or an airport or hotel or something and then they'll say oh gosh me and such and such are friends now and they might even have a photograph they put on social media so that there's this this assumed intimacy that isn't there which can actually be a little destabilizing for you who now thinks like why is this person asking me to have coffee with them like we just happen to like the same book you know and so now all of a sudden the and they're really they'll keep texting you and saying hey you want to hang out you want to do this you want to do that it's as though they're they're misreading the situation because again that's very superficial to them hey you gave me your phone number we must be friends right superficial yes i get that yeah now do they have to have all of these no typically for any of these patterns in any diagnostic manual it's usually i think there's about nine we talked eight or nine we've talked about usually it's five of those okay so five we have one two three four five six seven eight these are the eight yeah four to five of them yeah yeah a little over half of them and you'll see a lot of them cluster together the physical seductiveness the physical appearance appearance the getting attention that's that's the core of that this is the core can someone have histrionic personality disorder and borderline personality you know what would typically what we'd see is that the histrionic patterns are largely getting subsumed under the borderline piece and they're using the attention seeking seductive patterns as a way to create an overly intense attachment with another person okay how long do these symptoms have to last well we see that these are some these are patterns that generalize so this is what we don't want to do is like let's say somebody goes to college they're desperately trying to fit in or graduate school or some new job or new city they're desperately trying to fit in and they go and they buy the new wardrobe and they do themselves up and they're trying so hard and then after a couple months i give it up like i've met my friends i'm cool it's good it's this is not flash in the pan these are patterns that are consistent across intimate relationships family relationships work relationships in the world in general and it characterizes much of their adult life like this is not does that make sense it's not just a merry widow this isn't depression where you have to have no no no it's not episodic it's not it's chronic it's chronic now are there different types of histrionic personality disorder you know there is a a famous you know and well wanted personality theorist a guy named theodore milan he recently passed in the last couple of years and he really had an incredibly well articulated theory of personality and personality disorder patterns for most of them whether it be borderline or histrionic he would identify sort of sub patterns because we use this word broadly but these patterns exist on a continuum from relatively benign to quite severe and they can manifest in different ways so for example one form that uh i believe that this might be in theodore milan's taxonomy is this idea of the appeasing histrionic individual so the appeasing histrionic individual will do anything to make sure everyone around them is happy and taken care of and they are very solicitous but it's almost like they look like the rescuer like this they're the leader of the tribe and you know and they almost a little bit anxious about all of that you know so there are different there's also more of the um the vivacious histrionic that's more of our classical histrionic that's the life of the party and give me all the attention and you know here i am and looking fabulous and i am fabulous so he identifies those subtypes and i think that's an a wise distinction what we see though is the way those subtypes line up they actually then explain a lot of the overlap with the other personality patterns for example the more appeasing histrionic style looks like a different personality style that we call dependent personality style the vivacious histrionic looks like a classical histrionic and then i think he even talks about more of like a i don't remember how he termed almost like a solon or a you know kind of a histrionic and these are people who get really brooding and resentful when they're not getting all the attention they want that feels a little bit more like a borderline pattern so you see now how this sort of this this blob called histrionic gets cut up into different pieces of pie that might overlap with other patterns and these things are very heterogeneous they're very nuanced because human beings are when will these symptoms start to display um you'll start here's where it gets tricky with histrionic many teenagers are by definition histrionic look at me you know look at me look at me no no i have blue hair no no i did this i did that look at my social media i always say you've got to let you gotta let an adolescent bake for a little while before you pull it out of the oven and so i would not overly get lost in the use of this term until maybe early to mid-20s okay and then see if it sustains because i got to be frank with you there are people in their 60s who are like this like a woman you know in her 60s who will still go out sexy seductive and you know it you know she really will feel like she's past her prime but she's still out there working it and getting the attention you know and so it's it it will sustain over the lifespan but i would not bandy the term around until the person's found a little bit of their stride in adulthood to rule it out from just the anxiety of trying to find their place in the world you've talked a little bit about this do you find a lot of differences on how men display these symptoms versus women yeah i do think i mean there are histrionic men and and what makes it tricky is i wish this was called superficial personality disorder i totally agree yeah yeah the word histrionic is a gendered term like i said as a feminist i really dislike this term holy i think it i think it pathologizes women which i have a problem with i think anyone can be attention seeking for men with histrionic personality style what you see is they'll often use money wealth and the trappings of that lamborghini sports car forty thousand dollar watch fancy man shoes right you know fancy man shoes yeah i need some of those goodness you know fancy man clothes like the labeled clothes and the suit cut just so and bottle service i'm gonna spend four thousand dollars and everyone's gonna see how great i am come give me attention in the bar the club that's it's in some ways men display the histrionic through more of their trappings because it's a little odd for a man i mean men don't have cleavage do they you know i mean and it's a little cliche and sort of studio 54ish to have your shirt unbuttoned and that kind of thing but like you know they may but they may really spend a lot of time at the gym so they can go and sort of be glisteny and abby and all of that you know they like going to resorts where they can show off their bodies all of that you'll see that in men so some similar to women but the attention seeking might take more of the wealth power possession kind of a path and what about for women for women they're going to they may use straight up appearance like a woman can use cosmetics and accessories and color in a different way i mean it would be unusual for a heterosexual man to go out in a magenta shirt and high heels yes like that would be um so for you know for women they may really be able to like they'll use style of dress seductiveness of dress um you know a cosmetic enhancement of their bodies which isn't as much something you'd see in a man that kind of thing so i think it's both appearance but for women it might be literally their physical appearance while for men it might be the trappings around that physical appearance what are the common co-morbid uh or co-occurring disorders that you see interestingly i think with histrionic personality it would not be unusual to see substance use disorders all this sort of socializing you know and attention seeking you're definitely going to increase the disinhibition if you will if you keep drinking in addition this is you can't always have all the attention unless you really are celebrity celebrity superstar superstar all eyes are not always going to be on you and so when that doesn't happen it's not unusual to see depressive symptomatology in folks with histrionic personality you may also see some comorbid anxious symptomatology i actually don't know the literature on this so i'm going to spit ball on this one you might possibly see disordered eating patterns maybe not a full-blown eating disorder but in the in this quest to look a certain way there may be if not like body dysmorphic symptoms eating disorder symptoms of restriction or over exercise or something like that as a way to maintain a certain physio physical appearance you might see that as well and you're going to see patterns from other personality disorders in our example therapy session where you were attempting to see if i had a narcissistic personality disorder did you ever think oh but he's histrionic you know the i mean if i'm going to call you out straight on this one kyle is that the you're in a you're in a performance-based industry right so you can turn it on and off and i've seen you been able to do that we'll be ch chatting you'll be on your phone and you'll be like three two one here i am so that on off-ness that sort of it can it can smell like histrionic over the past many months you and i have gotten to know each other yes you see what i'm saying so i would not if all i had done was judge you on the first 30 minutes i met you when you were in and out of a shoot okay i might be like what's his story and you're in the media okay two strikes yeah but then i got to know you and we've gotten to know each other quite well i know the depth of your inner world i know the stuff that you're about so no so it but that that superficial kind of like you know that can really make people think that and i you know it's like the glee club people yeah you know you gotta kind of talk to them and make sure because you know i have kids who are in the choir and they're whatever the opposite of histrionic is my kids but they were in that world and they would always sort of look shocked at the other glee club-esque people you know so i do remember that so i do think that you can be i mean i've been working in the media for a long time too i've even met people who do the kind of stuff i do are they can be like and jazz handsy like sort of jazz hands therapist and you know it it really is but then you get to know the person and you realize that they're able to sort of hold a room but they are also able to be present with you and keep out the distractions and they don't care that they're no longer the center of it's the center of attention important to note that in our next episode dr romney is going to explain how to make sure that you get the right diagnosis because you don't want to be treated for something that you don't have that and more as we continue this fascinating discussion on histrionic personality disorder [Music]

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 482,942

Keywords: histrionic personality disorder, histrionic, personality, disorder, personality disorder, disorders, superficial, borderline personality disorder, mental health, bpd, borderline, mental illness, psychology, antisocial, cluster b, dsm, impulsivity, diagnostic and statistical manual, psychologist, medcircle, anxiety, kyle kittleson, mental health awareness, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, self centered, signs, traits, shallow, narcissism, narcissist, dr ramani, video

Id: _enUUK6eXeU

Length: 30min 30sec (1830 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2022