Amber Heard: Another psychologist has debunked her personality disorder diagnoses

Dr Shannon Curry diagnosed Amber Heard with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and histrionic personality disorder (HPD). Another psychologist has spoken out about how the two disorders are ‘highly contested controversial psychiatric labels’.

Debunking histrionic personality disorder

Dr Jessica Taylor has debunked Amber Heard’s diagnosis of HPD as an ‘outdated’ diagnosis. Dr Taylor spoke to The Independent and said that both diagnoses are ‘not proven medical conditions’ and are actually ‘highly contested controversial psychiatric labels’.

Dr Jessica Taylor examines the pathologisation of women in mental health settings and also specialises in sexual violence and victim-blaming. During the interview, she explained that she hasn’t:

Heard anyone use the term ‘histrionic personality disorder’ unironically in years, and suggested it is a ‘debunked disorder’

Dr Jessica explains the history behind histrionic personality disorder. She says that it stems from the term ‘hysteria women’ which was commonly used for women when they didn’t conform to social norms.

They then created the term was turned into ‘histrionic women’ in 1980. She said:

Hysteria and histrionic personality disorder became known as the ‘wastebasket of mental health’, with many influential scholars rejecting their existence.

It is outrageous that in 2022, a psychologist would testify on the stand that a woman has ‘histrionic personality disorder’.

Debunking borderline personality disorder

Dr Taylor also debunked Heard's BPD diagnosis which she said was ‘yet another junk diagnosis thrown at women’. She then explained that women are 7 times more likely to be diagnosed with BPD than men.

She then goes on to explain that BPD stems from HPD and that both disorders overlap in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and ‘one is borne from the other’.

Dr Taylor also debunked Dr Curry’s claim that BPD has a ‘genetic basis’. To this statement she told The Independent:

There has never been any proof of genetic basis of any personality disorders, and so this is categorically false.

No gene has been found for any mental health disorder, and the American Psychiatric Association agree that at the current time, we do not know the relationship between biology and psychiatric disorder.

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