Functional analytic psychotherapy
Another way to treat histrionic personality disorder after identification is through functional analytic psychotherapy. The job of a Functional Analytic Psychotherapist is to identify the interpersonal problems with the patient as they happen in session or out of session. Initial goals of functional analytic psychotherapy are set by the therapist and include behaviors that fit the clients needs for improvement. Functional analytic psychotherapy differs from the traditional psychotherapy due to the fact that the therapist directly addresses the patterns of behavior as they occur in-session.The in-session behaviors of the patient or client are considered to be examples of their patterns of poor interpersonal communication and to adjust their neurotic defenses. To do this, the therapist must act on the clients behavior as it happens in real time and give feedback on how the clients behavior is affecting their relationship during therapy. The therapist also helps the client with histrionic personality disorder by denoting behaviors that happen outside of treatment; these behaviors are termed "Outside Problems" and "Outside Improvements". This allows the therapist to assist in problems and improvements outside of session and to verbally support the client and condition optimal patterns of behavior". This then can reflect on how they are advancing in-session and outside of session by generalizing their behaviors over time for changes or improvement". Coding client and therapist behaviors
In these sessions there is a certain set of dialogue or script that can be forced by the therapist for the client to give insight on their behaviors and reasoning".
A twin study conducted by the Department of Psychology at Oslo University attempted to establish a correlation between genetics and Cluster B personality disorders. With a test sample of 221 twins, 92 monozygotic and 129 dizygotic, researchers interviewed the subjects using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders (SCID-II) and concluded that there was a correlation of 0.67 that histrionic personality disorder is hereditary. Psychoanalytic theory
Though criticised as being unsupported by scientific evidence, psychoanalytic theories incriminate authoritarian or distant attitudes by one (mainly the mother) or both parents, along with conditional love based on expectations the child can never fully meet. Using psychoanalysis, Freud believed that lustfulness was a projection of the patients lack of ability to love unconditionally and develop cognitively to maturity, and that such patients were overall emotionally shallow. He believed the reason for being unable to love could have resulted from a traumatic experience, such as the death of a close relative during childhood or divorce of ones parents, which gave the wrong impression of committed relationships. Exposure to one or multiple traumatic occurrences of a close friend or family members leaving (via abandonment or mortality) would make the person unable to form true and affectionate attachments towards other people. HPD and antisocial personality disorder
Another theory suggests a possible relationship between histrionic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder.