Editing Histrionic personality disorder (section)

=== Interviews and self-report methods ===
In general clinical practice with assessment of personality disorders, one form of interview is the most popular: an [[unstructured interview]].<ref name="Sutker2">Sutker, P.B. (2002). Histrionic, Narcissistic, and Dependent Personality Disorders. Comprehensive handbook of psychopathology (3rd ed., pp. 513–514). New York: Kluwer Academic.</ref> The actual preferred method is a [[semi-structured interview]] but there is reluctance to use this type of interview because they can seem impractical or superficial.<ref name="Sutker2" /> The reason that a semi-structured interview is preferred over an unstructured interview is that semi-structured interviews tend to be more objective, systematic, replicable, and comprehensive.<ref name="Sutker2" /> Unstructured interviews, despite their popularity, tend to have problems with unreliability and are susceptible to errors leading to false assumptions of the patient.<ref name="Sutker2" />

One of the single most successful methods for assessing [[personality disorders]] by researchers of normal personality functioning is the [[self-report inventory]] following up with a semi-structured interview.<ref name="Sutker2" /> A disadvantage to the self-report inventory method is that, with histrionic personality disorder, there is a distortion in character, self-presentation, and [[self-image]].<ref name="Sutker2" /> This means that most clients cannot be assessed by simply asking them if they match the criteria for the disorder.<ref name="Sutker2" /> Most [[projective test]]ing depends less on the ability or willingness of the person to provide an accurate description of the self, but there is currently limited empirical evidence on projective testing to assess histrionic personality disorder.<ref name="Sutker2" />