People who strive to constantly be the center of attention, childishly reacting with tears and hysterics to the prohibitions and busyness of other people, are also childishly self-centered. Creative personalities with a fragile inner world and a vulnerable soul? Or people with hysterical disorder?
The essence of the disorder
People with hysterical disorder (hysterical disorder) look unusual, bright, theatrical. Their behavior and appearance are provocative and seductive. They are asking for compliments. They want to be the center of attention at any cost. They say about them “negative PR is also PR.” For inattention to their own person, hysterical individuals punish others with irritation, aggression and resentment.
At the same time, hysterical individuals suffer from unstable self-esteem. They strive to please and please everyone. They take all relationships too closely, and react to all events very emotionally. This makes them easily disappointed in people and suffer over little things.
Others see them as insincere. First of all, precisely because of the intensity of emotions and violent reactions to trivial things.
Hysterical individuals are characterized by repression. They choose from life and events what they like and benefit from, which will create drama. Very often important details are left out. In relationships, such omissions provoke conflicts.
Some scientific sources classify histrionic disorder as a borderline disorder. Indeed, in both cases, individuals are distinguished by emotional instability and a pronounced dependence of the individual’s state on the opinions and assessments of the environment. And also in both cases, the person is only capable of unstable and superficial relationships.
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Hysterical personality type
The most characteristic feature of hysterical individuals is the thirst for recognition, that is, the desire to attract the attention of others at any cost. This is manifested in their demonstrativeness, theatricality, exaggeration and embellishment of their experiences. Their actions are designed for an external effect, just to amaze others, for example, with an unusually bright appearance, a storm of emotions (delight, sobs, wringing of hands), stories about extraordinary adventures, inhuman suffering. Sometimes patients, in order to attract attention to themselves, do not stop at lies and self-incrimination, for example, attributing to themselves crimes that they did not commit. These are called pathological
liars
.
Hysterical individuals are characterized by mental infantilism (immaturity), which manifests itself in emotional reactions, judgments, and actions. Their feelings are superficial and unstable. External manifestations of emotional reactions are demonstrative, theatrical, and do not correspond to the reason that caused them. They are characterized by frequent mood swings and rapid changes in likes and dislikes. Hysterical types are characterized by increased suggestibility and self-hypnosis, therefore they constantly play some role and imitate the personality that has struck them. If such a patient is admitted to the hospital, he can copy the symptoms of diseases of other patients who are in the ward with him. Hysterical individuals are characterized by an artistic type of thinking. Their judgments are extremely contradictory and often have no basis in reality. Instead of logical comprehension and sober assessment of facts, their thinking is based on direct impressions and their own inventions and fantasies. Psychopaths of the hysterical circle often achieve success in creative activities or scientific work, as they are helped by an unbridled desire to be in the center of attention, egocentrism. The hysterical (theatrical, histrionic) character occurs in people without frequent or conspicuous hysterical symptoms.
Analytically oriented therapists tend to view people with a histrionic personality organization as falling within the neurotic range because the defenses that define their personal experience are considered more mature. But there are also borderline and psychotic hysterical people. Kernberg et al use the term "hysterical" for high-level patients. “Hysteroid” or “theatrical, histrionic” - for patients from borderline to psychotic levels. Although this personality type is more often observed in women, hysterically organized men are no exception.
People with a hysterical personality structure are characterized by high levels of anxiety, tension and reactivity - especially interpersonally. Due to the high levels of anxiety and conflict they suffer from, their emotionality may seem superficial, artificial and exaggerated to others.
Many researchers believe that hysterically organized people are tense, hypersensitive and sociophilic by temperament. Hysterically organized people also differ in the quality of their mental operations (Shapiro spoke of a hysterical cognitive style). In particular, they are characterized by impressionism, globality and imagery. Some highly educated people with a hysterical personality structure are unusually creative. By combining the data of affective and sensory apperception with more linear, logical approaches to cognition, they generate excellent examples of the integration of intellectual and artistic modes of perception.
There is an assumption of a double fixation in hysteria - on oral and oedipal problems. In a simplified way, it can be stated as follows: a very sensitive and hungry little girl needs especially responsive maternal care. She is disappointed in her mother, who fails to make the girl feel adequately protected, well-fed and valued. As she approaches the Oedipal phase, she achieves separation from her mother through her devaluation and turns her intense love toward her father as the most attractive object, especially because her unsatisfied oral needs combine with later genital interests and markedly intensify the Oedipal dynamic. But how can a girl achieve a normal resolution of the Oedipal conflict, identifying with her mother and at the same time competing with her? She still needs her mother, and at the same time has already devalued her
This dilemma binds her to the Oedipal level. As a result of this fixation, she continues to see men as strong and amazing and women as weak and insignificant.
Defense mechanisms. People with a hysterical personality structure use repression, sexualization, and regression. They are characterized by an antiphobic reaction outward (acting out), usually associated with preoccupation with imagined power and danger emanating from the opposite sex. They also use dissociative defenses in a broad sense.
Repression can be a very useful defense, but it is fragile and unreliable when applied against normal impulses that continue to be stimulated and exert pressure for discharge.
People who suppress erotic urges and conflicts that seem dangerous or unacceptable tend to feel sexually unsatisfied and somewhat anxious. They are very sexually provocative (return of the repressed), but are unaware of the sexual proposition hidden in their behavior. In addition to these interacting processes of repression and sexualization, people with a hysterical organization resort to regression. Feeling insecure, at risk of rejection, or faced with a predicament that stimulates subconscious feelings of guilt and fear, they may become helpless and childish in an attempt to protect themselves from trouble, disarming potential abusers and people whose rejection they fear. Histrionic personalities are easily suggestible. If they are relatively high-functioning, then, resorting to regression, they can be extremely charming. In the borderline and psychotic ranges, theater patients may become mentally ill, addicted, or whiners. Acting out in hysterical people is usually antiphobic in nature: they strive for what they unconsciously fear. Seduction with fear of sex is just one example. They are also prone to exhibitionistic demonstration of their body, despite the fact that they themselves are ashamed of it, they strive to be in the center of attention, while they subjectively feel that they are worse than others; flaunt and perform heroic deeds, unconsciously fearing aggression, provoke people in power, being frightened by their power. Since people with a hysterical structure have an excess of unconscious anxiety, guilt and shame, and perhaps also because by temperament they are tense and susceptible to overstimulation, they are easily suppressed. Experiences endured by people of a different psychological type can be traumatic for hysterics. Consequently, they often resort to the mechanism of dissociation to reduce the amount of affectively charged information they must simultaneously deal with. Illustrations: pseudologia fantastica - the tendency to tell a blatant lie and at the same time, at least in the process of telling it, to believe in it; fugue states; bodily memory of traumatic events not consciously recalled; dissociated behavior - insatiable eating or attacks of hysterical rage, etc. Object relations .
The stories of people with hysterical tendencies almost always contain events or relationships that attribute unequal power and value to the male and female sexes. For women, the result of an upbringing that exaggerates the most primitive cultural stereotypes about gender relations (men are strong but narcissistic and dangerous; women are soft and welcoming, but weak and helpless), is the desire to seek security and self-respect through attachment to men whom she considers especially strong. A woman may use her sexuality to do this and then find that she does not have a satisfactory sexual response to physical intimacy with such a person. She may also, because the perceived power terrifies her, try to awaken the gentler sides of her male partner and then unconsciously devalue him as insufficiently masculine (soft, effeminate, weak). Some little boys, raised under a “matriarchy” where their maleness was denigrated (sometimes with contemptuous opposition to hypothetical “real men”), develop in a hysterical direction, despite the advantage traditionally given to men in general. Some hysterically organized people - both men and women are thus subjected to repeated cycles of gendered revaluation and disillusionment, where power is sexualized but sexual satisfaction is curiously absent or ephemeral.
Hysterical self . The main sense of self in hysteria is that of a small, fearful and defective child coping with difficulties as well as can be expected in a world dominated by powerful and alien others. Although people with a hysterical personality often act as controlling and manipulative, their subjective psychological state is completely opposite. The manipulation produced by individuals with a hysterical structure is secondary to their basic desire for security and acceptance. Self-esteem in theatrical people often depends on their periodic achievement of the feeling that they have the same status and power as people of the opposite sex. Attachment to an idealized object - especially the opportunity to be seen with him - creates something like a “derived” self-esteem: “This powerful person is part of me.” Another way for people with a hysterical personality to achieve self-esteem is to save others. They can show care for their inner fearful child through appeal, providing assistance to a child who is in danger. The phenomenon of a kind, sympathetic, loving woman falling in love with a predatory, destructive man in the hope of “saving” him is puzzling, but it is familiar. Hysterically organized women tend to view any power they possess through natural aggression as more likely to represent their “masculine” side , than an integrated part of their gender identity. The inability to feel the strength in femininity creates for hysterically organized women an insoluble self-perpetuating problem: “When I feel strong, I feel like a man, not a strong woman.” Because they believe that the only potential for femininity is their sexual attractiveness, these patients may be too much concerned about the way they look and have a greater fear of aging than most people. Any client with hysterical tendencies, male or female, should be encouraged to develop other areas (besides physical attractiveness) in which self-respect can be found and realized. Vanity and seduction tendencies in hysterical people, although it constitutes a narcissistic defense in the sense that these relationships serve to gain and maintain self-esteem, differs in terms of behavior from a similar process in people with an essentially narcissistic personality structure. People with a hysterical structure are not internally indifferent and empty; they fascinate people because they fear invasion, exploitation and rejection. When they do not have these reasons for concern, they are sincerely welcoming and friendly. The behavior of hysterical people aimed at attracting attention has the unconscious meaning of an attempt to confirm the fact that they are accepted.
They often express dramatized, inauthentic, exaggerated qualities.
This does not mean, however, that they do not “really” experience the emotions they say they are experiencing. Their superficiality and obvious affectation stem from extreme concern about what will happen if they rashly express themselves to someone they consider powerful. Because they were once devalued and infantilized, they do not expect respectful attention to their feelings. These people exaggerate emotions to relieve anxiety and convince themselves and others of their right to express themselves. Transference and Countertransference
Transference was initially discovered with patients whose complaints fell within the realm of hysteria, and it is no coincidence that it was so prominent with them.
Theatrical people are highly object-oriented and emotionally expressive. They are more willing than other types to discuss their behavior with people in general and with a therapist in particular.
Since the histrionic personality is a psychological type in which gender-related issues dominate the way the patient sees the world, the nature of the initial transference will vary depending on the gender of both the patient and the therapist. With a male therapist, female clients typically feel aroused, fearful, and defensively seductive. With a female therapist they are often slightly hostile and competitive.
The combination of a hysterical female patient and a male therapist immediately awakens the patient's central conflict.
Borderline and psychotic hysterical people can be difficult to treat as they will react very destructively and feel very threatened by the therapeutic relationship. However, even high-functioning hysterical clients can have transferences of such intensity that they become almost indistinguishable from psychotics. Strong transferences are exhausting for both therapist and patient, but can be dealt with effectively through interpretation.
Sometimes the transference in a person with a hysterical character may become painfully intense before he feels sufficient trust in the therapist to bear it. Theatrical people may run away, especially in the first months of treatment, sometimes rationalizing their action, sometimes realizing that it is the strength of their own attraction, fear or hatred and the anxiety it causes that scares them away. Even though fearful reactions usually coexist alongside warm feelings, they may be too distressing to be tolerated: “So preoccupied with winning the therapist's love that they fail to benefit from therapy.
Countertransference with hysterical clients may involve both defensive distancing and infantilization. The therapeutic couple in which these possibilities create the most problems is the male therapist (especially if he has a generally narcissistic personality) and the female patient.
Since regression is the main weapon in the hysterical arsenal, countertransference may manifest itself in the intention to treat such patients as if they were small children. “The appeal of playing Big Daddy to a vulnerable and grateful little one is obviously very strong.” The problem with being too sympathetic and accommodating to hysterical people, even if there is no hostile condescension in the attitude, is that the client's self-deprecating concept will be reinforced.
Finally, mention should be made of the temptation to countertransference in response to the patient's seductiveness. Again, this threatens male therapists more than female therapists. Women treating hysterical patients, even very seductive heterosexual men, are protected by internalized social conventions that make the dependent man-authoritative woman couple difficult to erotize.
What hysterical clients need (and this is precisely the opposite of what they feel they need when their central conflict is activated in therapy) is the experience of powerful desires that are not exploited by the object to which they are directed. Trying and failing to seduce someone leads to a profound transformation in theater people, as - often for the first time in their lives - they learn that authority figures can offer them help without using them, and that direct expressions of autonomy are more effective than defensive ones. sexualized her perversions.
Causes of the disorder
The roots of the disorder go back to childhood:
- Probably, the parents did not notice the child, were busy with work, and paid attention only when the child was ill. The feeling of uselessness and loneliness, unsatisfied desires and needs of the child are prerequisites for the development of hysterical disorder.
- Demanding parents who force the child to deserve love is another possible reason.
- Another unfavorable family upbringing style that can lead to hysterical disorder is “family idol” upbringing. Indulging in the whims of a child and elevating his personality to a cult is also not beneficial.
Preventive actions
Prevention of the disease should take place in early childhood and adolescence. It is non-specific:
- the family should have a friendly and supportive psychological atmosphere;
- parents explain to the child how to interact correctly with people around him and perceive his own personality;
- when moving, transferring to another educational institution and situations accompanied by stress, a child psychologist works with the child;
- assistance in determining a future profession.
If a person is diagnosed with hysterical personality disorder, then prevention is aimed at preventing his transition to the stage of decompensation. This requires eliminating any stressful situations, taking drugs and alcohol, and also ensuring positive relationships with loved ones.
Symptoms
The main symptoms of hysterical disorder include:
- regularly seeking the attention of others;
- inconsistency in affections, interests and relationships;
- whims;
- an irresistible and uncontrollable desire to be in the center of being taken out due to admiration, surprise or pity (it doesn’t matter).
For people with hysterical disorder, there is nothing worse than indifference, so even the image of a negative hero will do. In order to attract attention, it is often used:
- extravagant and defiant appearance;
- boasting;
- lie;
- fantasies;
- inventing diseases with very real (psychosomatic) demonstration of symptoms (spasms, nausea, suffocation, numbness or iciness of the limbs).
Knowledge and thoughts are often superficial, but at the same time a person strives to look better and knowledgeable in everything. Because of this, it often looks ridiculous and stupid. And if he manages to interest someone in the primary “top of the sciences,” then this will not last long. Upon closer acquaintance, the inner emptiness makes itself felt and the interlocutor’s interest disappears. It should be noted that the desire to be noticed in a hysterical person is still stronger than the desire to be the best.
Hysterical personalities are suggestible and very susceptible to the influence of others. Their whole life is a theater; for every action they need spectators. Each of their actions is endowed with elements of drama.
Defending, especially sensitive hysteroids are classified into a special group. They are anxious and shy, infantile. Their inner world is complex, the individuals themselves suffer from feelings of inferiority and increased reflection. Infantility and fragility manifest themselves at the level of not only the psyche, but also physiology. However, naivety and frankness are often feigned. Inside there are individuals with an iron grip and resourcefulness in life. They manipulate people with their weakness and whims.
Behavior is often theatrical in nature, gender affiliation is cultivated. Probably the phrase “I am a woman, I need to be pursued. I need attention. I can be moody” often refers to a personality disorder. After all, this pathology is more common in women.
The likelihood of developing hysterical disorder in women is higher provided that at a young age the girl managed to overcome problems in interpersonal relationships through theatrical behavior. Then such behavior could become entrenched as a stereotype.
Hysterical personality type in women
Let's talk about girls first. For girls the situations are as follows:
1) a situation when a girl sees that her brother’s parents love her more than her, that her brother gets more attention and more love
2) or when the girl’s parents tell her that they actually wanted a boy and not a girl
3) or when a girl is praised only for her appearance and for the passive traits of her character (“what a beautiful, sweet, quiet, kind girl you are, always be like that”). At the same time, her brothers will be told “just don’t act like a girl!”
Then for a girl it will be like such a double message: on the one hand, you are praised for being “girlish,” for “femininity,” for your female gender, and on the other hand, for some reason, boys are instilled with the idea that being a girl is somehow bad, shameful and unworthy. And the girl has a double image in her head: she seems to be a princess, she seems to be a queen, but for some reason at the same time she is secondary in relation to boys and men. Such a “minor princess”.
4) another difficult moment for girls is the moment when they grow up, when they enter puberty and when they begin to develop as women. I have already talked about psychological incest, but the opposite situation may also happen: at the moment of the girl’s transformation into a woman, the father may be afraid of this daughter’s new sexuality and may begin to unconsciously reject her, shunning her. Then the young girl begins to feel that something is again wrong with her gender, that she is being rejected because of her female gender, because she is a woman (after all, teenage brothers, for example, are not rejected). And at the same time, she vaguely understands that this same femininity has some strange power over men. It turns out to be a big mess in your head.
Diagnostics
Hysterical disorder is diagnosed if at least 4 of the following symptoms are present:
- ostentatious and theatrical behavior, exaggerated expression of feelings (for example, sobbing excitedly, wide hugs, bows);
- suggestibility and ease of being influenced from outside (people or situations);
- frequent changes between pessimistic and optimistic states;
- regularly seeking out exciting experiences and activities that will allow you to be the center of attention;
- inadequate demonstration and emphasis of sexuality (gender) in appearance and behavior;
- expressed concern about external attractiveness.
Treatment
In the correction of self-disorder, the method of assertive behavior (independence of the state from the assessments and opinions of others, focus on oneself), cognitive restructuring (changing negative and destructive thinking that leads to dangerous behavior to positive and productive thinking), development of social skills, training in methods of problem solving (getting out of difficult life situations). Sometimes drug therapy is used, but for the correction of related diseases and consequences, for example, depression.
Psychological help consists of supporting a hysterical personality. But only socially acceptable forms of behavior should be encouraged. It is necessary to maintain the artistry of the individual, but at the same time gradually rid him of the god complex. Attention, understanding and regular evaluation (praise) are important for a hysterical personality.
You need to understand that people with hysterical disorder do not respond to requests and advice, so you need to carefully switch their attention to something else, thereby distracting them from negative experiences.
People with histrionic disorder avoid situations of failure and frustration. But it is on mistakes that life experience is built. Therefore, it is important to teach how to accept defeats and overcome difficulties. It is important for loved ones to provide support and attention, including in situations of failure, so that gradually they are perceived normally by the patient.
General information about the disease
Hysterical psychopathy is classified as a personality disorder. Characteristic manifestations are egocentrism, thirst for attention from others, demonstrative behavior and infantilism. Symptoms of the pathology are detected in 3-6% of the population of Russia and other countries. It occurs equally often in men and women.
People with hysterical personality disorder may not seek medical help. The pathology often does not affect their professional life, and they can achieve success in creative activities. However, in some patients, psychopathy progresses and leads to negative consequences: divorce, loss of property, loss of friends and loved ones.
Afterword
A hysterical personality will always have little attention; she always needs proof of love. But the paradox is that saturation will never come. Gradually, discontent will accumulate, and threats and aggression will rain down on loved ones. To avoid this, you need to help the individual learn to express their needs and desires, dissatisfaction and disagreement immediately, speak directly about them, and not throw tantrums and guessing games.
Depending on the interests of the individual, you need to find a hobby that will satisfy the need for attention. For example, in many sports, the desire to be the best and be in the spotlight will be beneficial. Of course, the egocentrism of a hysterical person and the very essence of teamwork will often come into conflict, but it is hysterical people who can stir up a team.
Hysterical disorder can be expressed to varying degrees. In some cases it remains at the level of accentuation. A loving, patient, and most importantly psychologically literate person who knows the characteristics of hysterical manifestations can help a hysterical person.
Hysterical personality type in men
What's happening to the boys?
Hysteria in boys has been poorly studied, and it is generally accepted that hysteria is a purely “female diagnosis.” But I think it can be assumed that boys can also be influenced by certain aspects of their upbringing that will contribute to the formation of a hysterical type of character.
What could it be?
1) this could be the same physical or psychological incest (on the part of the mother or father), after which the boy will feel disgusted with his gender
2) this could also be a “real man” problem. If a boy is born into a family with a strict and traditional division of gender roles, and if a boy is born with a softer temperament than what is considered “masculine,” then such a boy may be ridiculed for not being a real man. I can tell him that he is a weakling, a nurse, a coward, a crybaby, and so on, that he behaves like a girl. Of course, this will not cause much love for the male sex in the boy. Especially if his father is the one who shames him for his “lack of masculinity.”
