by Nayab Sh

Created on: May 04, 2010

Treating Histrionic Personality Disorder

Histrionic personality disorder is characterized by excessive emotional state for being center of attention everywhere. This psychological problem develops in early childhood and adversely affects the relationships due to the presence of exaggerated expectations. A mental health care has to face difficulty in diagnosing the patient of histrionic personality disorder until some traumatic event happens in his life like sudden breakup of important relationship or death of a loved one. The main treatment tool for histrionic personality disorder is psychotherapy but medication and self training can also be used to deal with certain conditions involved in this disorder.          

Applying Psychotherapeutic Techniques

Psychotherapy is the most preferred treatment option for histrionic personality disorder. In such cases therapy is based upon eliminating the daily routine problems rather than producing a long lasting change in patient’s behavior. A psychiatrist has to deal his patient with extreme care because a trivial mistake in his behavior can worsen the situation. In extreme cases patient either gets strongly attached with his clinicians or feels to be discriminated or insulted by him. In such situations extreme reactions are seen during treatment procedures. Therefore a clinician has to be careful in handling such patient while rescuing him from the problems of daily life.     

Using Medications

The use of medication is allowed in dealing with depressed condition of such patient but this thing will be handled carefully. On one hand medication can suppress the symptoms of depression and anxiety while on other hand it can lead to other physiological and psychological complications. So in case of recommending medication for a patient of histrionic personality disorder, a health specialist must be very careful to prevent any possible side effect on mind and body of that patient.     

Special Training for Coping with Symptoms   

Another treatment option which can reduce the level of excessive emotions and can mitigate the exaggerated state of mind is to train such patient to cope with the symptoms of this disorder. These coping strategies make him more independent and reduce the inner inferiority complex which compels him towards attention seeking and behaving abnormally.     

With the combination of these treatment methods a patient suffering from histrionic personality disorder learns to control his exaggerated emotional state and tries to keep him normal and composed while behaving in routine gatherings.    

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