Histrionic Personalities: Sexualization as a defense

As Valentine’s Day quickly approaches…love and romance are ever-present on people’s minds.

Psychologically, Histrionic personality comes to mine.  

The heightened importance of love and affection that engulfs people’s minds, along with the endless corporate marketing behind it, can make it difficult to not think of love and sex

As one of the primary defense mechanisms of someone whose character can be said to be Histrionic is sexualization, for Valentine’s day, I designed this shirt

Looking in the DSM-5, one will find that Histrionic Personality Disorder is often characterized by attention seeking, emotional overreactions, and seductive behavior.

People with a histrionic personality are understood to feel uncomfortable when they are not the center of attention, appear to behave seductively to others, and may appear emotionally superficial.  

In fact, some of the criteria noted include:

• being overly concerned with their physical appearance/using their appearance to draw attention to themselves

• constantly seeking reassurance or approval inappropriately seductive appearance or behavior; and

• rapidly shifting emotional states that appear shallow to others.

Psychoanalysis offers some insights into the character organization of a Histrionic personality

Different psychoanalytic theories highlight different developmental and inter/intrapersonal dynamics that might contribute to one developing a personality organized around Histrionic dynamics

Some individuals theorize that people with this character organization are:

• contending with both oedipal and oral conflicts

• others note early childhood experiences that highlight stereotypical gender roles/power as well as seductive and frightening parenting,  

• and others might focus on the development of inferior sense of self

Common defense mechanisms associated with Histrionic personalities include:

• repression,

• regression,

• acting out, and

• sexualization

When viewed as a defensive process, rather than a form of enjoyment or expression, histrionically organized people could be seen utilizing their sexuality and seductiveness as a strategy to defend against a low sense of self-worth

While common for others to think of and experience a Histrionically organized person as shallow and narcissistic, the underlying, unconscious, motivation for this behavior is often not serving the same function as an individual whose character is narcissistic

In lieu of building a sense of self-worth where emptiness might otherwise exist, the histrionically organized individual is often acting to defend against a fear of rejection or exploitation, and intrusion

In fact, sexualization as a defense mechanism is often utilized to mitigate and transform an experience of terror, pain, discomfort, or dread with an attempt to experience a sense of excitement

Histrionic Personality dynamics were the inspiration for the design of this shirt

The use of lips leading towards the crotch is perhaps a not subtle allude to sex and sexuality

The lips were hand painted in red, a color often associated with passion and sex

The choice of a black background was selected to contrast and exaggerate the lips, reflective of the exaggerated sense of affect often associated with these personalities

Lastly, and perhaps from personal experience I can state that, wearing this shirt draws a lot of attention, also reflective of a histrionic dynamic.  

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.)

McWilliams, N. (2011). Psychoanalytic diagnosis: Understanding personality structure in the clinical process. Guilford Press.