DEFINITION:
The phrase “histrionic personality disorder (HPD)” refers to a mental illnesscharacterized by a high degree of self-dramatization; attention-seeking; craving for stimulation; loud, disruptive, or other inappropriate behavior; and exaggerated displays of emotionality.
ETYMOLOGY:
HPD was introduced into the psychological literature in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition (DSM-III)in 1980.
The English term “histrionic” is attested from the mid-nineteenth century. The word derives from the Late Latin adjective, histrionicus, which in turn derives from the Classical Latin noun, histrio, histriōnis, meaning “actor.” The Latin word was itself borrowed from Etruscan.
For the etymology of the term “personality,” see the Glossary entry, personality.
For the etymology of the term “disorder,” see the Glossary entry, borderline personality disorder.
DISCUSSION:
The phrase HPD effectively superseded the earlier word “hysteria,” which was a technical term introduced into the English medical literature around the turn of the nineteenth century to describe the suffering linked to extreme emotional excitability that physicians of the day attributed to certain middle- and upper-class women.
By the time the third edition of the DSM was published in 1980, the concept of “hysteria” had become a public embarrassment, both because it singled out women, and perhaps also because the term itself derived from the long-outdated medical theory—which may be traced back to ancient Egypt—that the supposedly female mental disorder was caused by a “wandering” uterus.
Despite the manifest discomfort engendered in modern psychologists by this checkered history, the constellation of symptoms to which the term “hysteria” used to refer remained an undeniable reality—whence the need for a new term.
The term “histrionic” transfers the emphasis from the putative etiology of the disorder to its main symptoms—what we call, in everyday parlance, the “drama queen.” That is, after 1980, the HPD sufferer began to be conceptualized as people (whether women or men) driven to act out their personal emotional dramas as though they were actors on a stage.
Although the suffering of HPD patients is genuine, their lack of self-control and the way they “act out” their feelings may make them appear to others to be frivolous or even to be shamming.
People with HPD may seem to others to be arrogant and egocentric, even though they actually feel inadequate, or are afraid of other people’s judgments of them.
HPD is associated with extraversion, a reduced tolerance for frustration, and a limited capacity for delayed gratification.