Dealing with Drama: Histrionic High Conflict People

Histrionic Personality Disorder. It’s all about the drama.

Drama abounds online, on television, in movies, and in everyday life. But have you been around a person who is all drama all the time? With loads of storytelling and emotional persuasion? You may have been around someone with a histrionic high conflict personality.

This type of personality is driven by an intense need to be the center of attention, and when they aren’t, the blame and anger begin. But in the beginning, you may have been charmed by their sometimes flirtatious behavior (not all are this way) and later experienced and been exhausted by their non-stop drama and attention-seeking. Bill and Megan discuss the histrionic high conflict personality type, including:

• Their need to be the center of attention and fear of feeling ignored
• The differences between a self-absorbed person and someone with histrionic high conflict personality traits and behaviors
• Why they exhaust those around them and how others experience their high conflict behaviors
• How to spot them
• Statistics on Histrionic Personality Disorder and histrionic HCPs in the U.S.

Understanding and dealing with Histrionic HCPs takes time, but learning about their fear-based operating system as well as learning a few simple skills – like setting limits – will help calm your life and prevent you from burning out.

If you’ve spent much time around someone with a histrionic high conflict personality, you know how exhausting interactions with them can be. Plus, their M.O. in life is it’s all about me, creating lop-sided relationships and one-way interactions. Setting limits is a key skill in turning that around. The first step is to understand their behavior patterns, starting now.

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We’d love to hear your stories so we can talk through them on the show! Please visit our site and click the ‘Submit a Question’ button at the top of the page. You can also send us an email at podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or send us a note on any of our socials.

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Links & Other Notes

Books:

• It’s All Your Fault
• 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life

Conflict Communication Series

• Calming Upset People with EAR
• BIFF
• BIFF for CoParent Communication
• BIFF at Work
• All of our books can be found in our online store or anywhere books are sold, including as e-books and some in audio format.

On Demand Courses:

• Calming Upset People with an EAR Statement™
• How to Write a BIFF Response®

Submit a Question for Bill and Megan

You can also find these show notes on our website as well.

• (00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault
• (02:51) - Histrionic Personality Disorders
• (04:31) - What Is Histrionic Personality Disorder?
• (07:28) - Superficial Speech
• (10:08) - Histrionic Fear
• (11:56) - How Does It Develop
• (13:50) - Helping Your Children Avoid Becoming Histrionic
• (16:36) - Stats
• (19:00) - When In a Relationship With a Histrionic
• (20:11) - In Romantic Relationship
• (21:47) - In the Workplace
• (23:10) - In Summary & Tips
• (24:22) - Common Areas
• (25:50) - Persuasive
• (27:08) - Histrionic vs. the Other Four Types
• (28:03) - Wrapping Up
• (28:50) - Reminders & Coming Next Week: Paranoid

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