Why Amber Heard can't give up [her conflict], admit and move on. A therapist's comment, and Ms Heard's facial expressions during the interview on Today show

On June 17, NBC will broadcast an hour-long interview with Amber Heard. Here's a 2 minute and 35 second snapshot of the interview. According to the evidence presented during the trial, Amber Heard is a perpetrator of domestic violence which is explained by personality disorder (Cluster B) and Complex childhood trauma. Part of the diagnosis is that she refuses to accept it and uses defensive argumentation. These are manifested in her facial expressions. Here are some more facial expressions and comments.

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On June 17 CBS aired its one hour long interview with Amber Heard hosted by Savannah Guthrie. Because CBS released snippets of the interview, there has been many comments already. I also wrote an article about these snippets on June 13 Why can't Amber Heard give up, admit and move on?

All of these commentaries are based on various peoples viewpoints about the case. I tried to apply my own model - Rational Entrepreneurial Thinking (R.E.T.; Österberg, chapter 3, In Swedish though) when analysing the interview and the comments. Rational Entrepreneurial Thinking is based on three established theories:

• Epistemic vigilance - by suspicious about the message and why the sender is sending the message (Sperber et al. 2010).
  
  
• Numeracy - the ability to understand, reason with, and to apply simple numerical concepts (Brooks and Pui, 2010).
  
  
• Disjunctive reasoning (Stanovich, 2009).

Defamation aside, this case represents not only a relation between two humans gone wrong, but also, why things went wrong. There are millions of similar cases out there where people can learn from the details of the trial. I my view, the legal teams word-battles are of less interest, compared to the evidence.

From the evidence presented during the trial, we already know that Ms Heard is a perpetrator of domestic violence and according to Dr. Shannon Curry's assessment, Ms Heard suffers from one or more cluster B personality disorders as a function of Complex childhood trauma (APA):

any in a group of disorders involving pervasive patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and the self that interfere with long-term functioning of the individual and are not limited to isolated episodes. DSM–IV–TR recognizes 10 specific personality disorders organized within three clusters: Cluster A includes paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal; Cluster B includes antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic; and Cluster C includes avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive; each disorder has its own entry in the dictionary. These constructs emerged from different theoretical perspectives of the early 20th century. They do not, however, exhaust the list of possible clinically significant maladaptive personality traits, and many of the DSM–IV–TR disorders are themselves often difficult to diagnose reliably; indeed, research has shown that many people diagnosed with a PD qualify for more than one. Conversely, personality disorder not otherwise specified, a residual category included within the DSM–IV–TR classification, is a highly common PD diagnosis in clinical settings, applied to patients whom clinicians determine to have a personality disorder but who do not meet the diagnostic criteria for any of the 10 disorders within the classification. DSM–5 retains the same clusters of disorders, as well as the same diagnostic criteria for them, but includes, for “further study,” a new model for PD classification, proposing impaired personality functioning and pathological personality traits as the main criteria for identifying the presence of a personality disorder.

That's also likely to be the reason why Ms Heard can’t give up, admit and move on.

Now, when the full interview has been released, more comments are published on YouTube. The first comment that showed up on in my YouTube-feed was Angelica, who is a psychotherapist. And she only calls herself Angelica. Because Angelica used material from the interview, CBS has blocked the video.

Even so, I looked at Angelica's video, and wrote down many of her comments. I write that because I may have missed some comments.

Because I know something about the relation between affects (facial expressions) and emotions, I also cut out images from the video showing Ms Heard's facial expression (responses) during the interview. Facial expressions are instant responses that display humans emotional state or reaction in a specific moment, and these affects are very hard to control. I think that the interview, framed by the evidence from the trial, Angelica's comments, and Ms Heard's own facial expressions, confirms what became obvious during the trial.

The premise then is that Ms Heard, due to her [Borderline] personality disorder (cluster B) couldn't handle a relationship; during a previous relationship, she was arrested for domestic violence. In the relationship with Mr Depp, Ms Heard worried that he would leave her. That seem to be part of the histrionic disorder (APA):

That triggered an emotional response which manifested in antisocial behavior.

After going into hiding a number of times, for example by locking himself into the bathroom, with Ms Heard outside banging on the door, Mr Depp had enough - he decided to give up the relationship. But Ms Heard couldn't accept that.

To vindicate, she made up stories and leaked them to the tabloids, then went further, asking for a restraining order, and then, with some help from an organization called ACLU, created a story which the editors at the Washington Post decided to publish as an op-ed.  It's all a chain of behaviors that went in the wrong direction.

The personnel at the court who decided to accept Ms Heard request for  restraining order against Mr Depp, did not base that decision on evidence, but on principles that are used to guide court personnel in their [subjective] decision making. In psychological science, these are called biases.

I suggest it’s a combination of at least two famous biases:

1. negativity bias and gender bias. We prioritize negative or positive information (Baumeister et al. 2001).
   
   
2. Simulation bias, meaning avoiding Rational thinking before a decision (Kahneman and Tversky, 1977).

Helping a woman in distress has been the main theme in many fairy tales. So the judge, hired to make objective decisions, failed. Now Ms Heard did just what she's been doing all of her life, she used that story and repeated it to as many people as possible.

Some people believed it was true. But in fact, it’s just an invalidated proposition. And this becomes clear during the interview.

Angelica's conclusion, based on her experience as a psychotherapist, is that Ms Heard suffers from a narcissistic, borderline and histrionic personality disorder. That's consistent with Dr. Curry's assessment. I don't know if Angelica just used Dr. Curry's statement, but from my own viewpoint, the assessment seems legit.

For sure, one characteristic of narcissistic personality disorder is that they are vindictive and manipulative, very vindictive, uh, very deceitful, and you know, they are compulsive liars. And  they are very envious (Angelica).

Here's the tricky part. As it seems, Ms Heard never received a formal diagnosis from a therapist. The implication seems to be that she can continue her quest to vindicate the loss of Mr Depp; her love for Mr Depp (she states that she still loves him) transforms into something else.

Like Dr Curry, Angelica says that Ms Heard's personality disorders developed early in life, and that is when she began to manipulate to get her needs met. This is also what the psychological science says. As humans we adjust socially and emotionally from childhood into adolescence. One manifestation of such a disorder is to avoid answering questions, because the whole thing is about making or forcing people to accept your viewpoint.

When Savannah Guthrie asks questions to Ms Heard, Ms Heard does not answer but sways the topic so that responsibility for her actions are attributed to someone else. On Savannah Guthrie questions about Ms Heard's responsibility for the op-ed, and the jury's conclusion that she violated the first amendment, Ms Heard starts to lecture Ms Guthrie about what freedom of speech is and its origin. And she is very convincing (manipulative). (There's a possibility that Ms Heard isn't responsible for the op-ed for the simple reason that she didn't write it - it was written by people at ACLU.)

Angelica:

As I've said before, somebody with mpd is a compulsive liar. She's able to lie this way, you know, probably probably because she's been lying her whole life. and I'm just talking about Amber. But people, uh, narcissists in general. Abusers in general. They become compulsive liars as a defense mechanism. As a way to survive. Because, you know, when you're being abused, put down constantly as a child, you will lie in order to get the approval of your parent. Because they don't want to be beaten, so they will lie. They don't want to be not just beaten, they don't want to be put down. And so they lie. And so that becomes  a way of life. It becomes second nature. It's very easy. It's just, it's it's it's their life. And so a said before you know, they will pass a polygraph test, because there's no physiological change with their lies. because there's no guilty feeling, there's no empathy. Because for a person with narcissistic personality disorder, they have long, long ago cut off their emotions. Their emotions get cut off at a very early age, because the whole situation is too painful. It's too painful to be with parents that don't love you the way that you need to be loved. Your'e not feeling love from your parents from on or both parents.This is how the personality disorder or personality disorders, borderline, histrionic a narcissistic, whichever one, this is how they get developed. Because the child is not being loved they way that they should be, they're not feeling the love they're feeling hate their, dude, they may be feeling hate and I've been in the presence of  a narcissist, I've been in the presence of many and you feel disdain, you feel hate, because the parent is, is, this is like, um, the parent is,does to the child that was done to them. You know  they are reenacting, it's an intergenerational cycle of  abuse. So, this is the origins of the lie, and it's just second nature, and, this is why this si happening.

(8 min 30 seconds). Then come the next video clip from the interview (27 min.), Savannah Guthrie: a witness say that Amber Heard hit Mr Depp in his face with a closed fist. The Depp team argue that you were the abuser, that you instigated physical violence, Ms Heard doesn't answer the question. Instead she respond:

- I never had to instigate it, I responded to it. The response is so intuitive that it indicates that she has been practicing to answer like that for a very long time. Angelica's response is that she thinks that Ms Heard studies abused women, to learn to act like an abused woman. She also says that both Ms Heard and Mr Depp were abused by their parents. Mr Depp grew up to be a victim, Ms Heard to be an abuser. My comment.

One interesting thing that Angelica doesn't mention is which parent she thinks was the abuser. In Mr Depp's case, his sister clearly pointed to their mother. In Ms Heard's case it’s a bit more complicated. During the trial, Ms Heard accused her father, but his behavior, when writing to Mr Depp to address his worries about his daughters becoming homeless after their divorce, shows signs of a caring father. That implies that Ms Heard’s mother was the abusive parent. That makes sense from a perspective of domestic violence.

(30 minutes 30 seconds) Because Ms Heard didn't answer Ms Guthrie's question the first time; Ms Guthrie's did the obvious: she repeated the question:

Witnesses said they have seen you instigate physical violence, did they all come in and lie in court? 

Before you read Ms Heard's response, take a look at her face when she receives the question:

Isn't this a child being accused of something? Before Ms Guthrie's have finished the question, Ms Heard responds:

I'm, you know, less interested in sitting here, you know, relitigating it with you. I am not here to call any of his witnesses any names. 

This must be painful for Ms Heard. Look at here facial expressions during her response:

(31 min 15 seconds) Angelica:

Yeah, let's change the subject it's what she saying because this is not going where I want it to go, so, let's just change the subject.

Ms Heard:

I'm not here to do that, I'm just here to just, kind of, talk about it from, yeah, what is felt like for mer as a person who sat there,

And again, her facial expressions during her answer:

Then they play audio recordings of the couple talking about how Ms Heard sometimes got physical. Ms Guthrie:

There are tapes in which you acknowledge hitting, there are tapes in which you say I started the fight.

First, again take a look at Ms Heard's facial expressions when Ms Guthrie mention the tapes.

I would say that this is the face of someone who is ready to fight, a so called flight & flight response. But the only thing out there to fight are imaginary windmills.

And Ms Heard doesn't wait one second before she responds with more defensive argumentation:

I know much has been made of, of, these audio tapes. And as I testified on the stand what what you would hear in those clips are not evidence of what was happening, it was evidence of negotiation.

Ms Heard is trying to sway the interpretation in her favor, but I think you ust be really biased to fall far that. Now look at her face during that statement. The first facial expressions represents Ms Heard rejection the claim made in the court, and the third and last picture represents her proposal that the audio tapes represented a negotiation of how to talk about that with your abuser.

My comment. Ms Heard is fighting windmills, that is, she trying to force her viewpoint onto the interviewer and the audience. This is likely something she had experienced during her upbringing.

Angelica: Ok, nobody is buying that. There's no negotiating, that was straight out abuse. You know, she is whacking his ear like she's hitting him,. That's straight up abuse. And she says I love you. That's so typical, you know, an abuser will sometimes say that after they trash you, after they hit you, after they put you down, call you down to the lowest. Calling you names. Then you know, they'll say I love you, you know, and, and, because what was happening in their relationship is what happens in all abusive toxic relationships is the cycle of violence. So you have the honeymoon phase and then you get tension, then you know, she's stirring up trouble, he's throwing up trouble, and then boom, you have the explosion, you have the big fight. And then you go through the honeymoon phase again and then you get the tension again, and then you got the big blow up, the big fight. And it goes around and around like that.  And what, what keeps the person um, you know, in the cycle of violence is that is sometimes the abuser is very normal, and sometimes you know, the relationship is vary pleasant, and you have some really amazing time together. You know, it's not always hell, it's not always abusive, so that's one thing that keeps the victim in these abusive relationships.

(33 min 48 sec.) Ms Guthrie:

a transcript that says, he says, you start physical fights and you say I did start a physical fight. But you're telling me today I never started a physical fight and here you are on tape saying you did.

Here's Ms Heard facial expressions during and straight after she received Mr Guthrie's statement:

In this sequence, Ms Heard shakes her head in denial when responding the the obvious facts..Then Ms Heard delivers more defensive argumentation that turns attention away from what she had said on tape:

As I testified on the stand about this is, that when your life is at risk, not only will you take the blame for things that you shouldn't take the blame for but when you're in a abusive dynamic psychologically, emotionally, and physically, you don't have the luxury of saying, hey! this is black and white, because it's anything but when you're living in it.

Again, her facial expressions during this argumentation may be the most interesting to see:

It must be very energy consuming for Ms Heard to do this.

Then Ms Guthrie tell Ms Heard that no other woman had come forward accusing Mr Depp of hitting them - you were the only one (That's an undisputed fact).

This is Ms Heard facial expression:

My interpretation is that she's expressing defiance, that she will never accept the facts that were presented during the trial. The likely reason is attributed to experiences from her chilhood.

(34 min 40 sec.) And her instant response is:

- look what happened to me when I came forward, would you?

Angelica: what happened to her when she came forward? What does that mean? What happened to her when she came forward? I don't get it. The whole metoo movement exploded, everybody believed her and, and, Johnny was trashed. Is that was she is talking about when she came forward and joined the whole metoo movement.Is that what she's talking about? Johnny's entire life was thrown, you know, to the wayside. Johnny's entire life and his family's life was destroyed his career was destroyed, so what is she talking about? I don't get it. I mean, everybody believed her, and now the truth has come out, and know she's gas lightning and she's going on with the smear campaign, hoping that, uh, we're all gonna turn around and believe her again after the truth has come out? Yeah, it's not gonna happen.

My comment. I think the trial showed three things.

1. First, that the jury had more faith in Johnny Depp's legal team. But all lawyers know its a gamble.
   
   
2. Second, the evidence: tape recordings and psychological assessment that showed that Ms Heard was the abuser, and that the explanation is trouble in her upbringing.
   
   
3. Third, the trial was broadcast live, that means full transparency.

A legal trial doesn't necessarily rest on the evidence. That's because we are humans, and humans are vulnerable for dysrationalia and other mental fallacies.

Ms Heard:

There was another trial dealt with the same substantive issues handled differently by a judge instead of a jury. and we prevailed over overwhelmingly.

Again, Ms Heard's facial expression during her response:

Ms Heard's facial expression when she said: - And we prevailed.

This is when Ms Heard say: - overwhelmingly.

Then Ms Heard claims that when she entered the courtroom, everyone was against her.

I'n claiming anything, but look at the definition and description of delusional disorder (APA):

(37 min 28 sec.)

Angelica: They were not just captain Jack Sparrow fans, all right. I was not a captain Jack Sparrow fan, at all. I've never seen Jack Sparrow at all. I became interested in this when suddenly I realized that this was all a hoax, that she had been lying the whole time. I became interested in this when I realized Johnny had been destroyed, that his life had been destroyed by this abuser, this whole time. This is why I got interested, this is why, you know, people have come out of the woodwork in support of Johnny. Not because of Jack Sparrow, not because of a movie.

(38 min 55 sec.) Ms Guthrie:

Right now, as you sit here today, do you stand by your testimony and your accusations against Johnny Depp about abuse?

Ms Heard:

Of course, and I will till my dying day. I know what happened to me. I'm here, as a survivor, to my dying day, will stand by every word of my testimony.

When saying that, her facial expressions looked like this:

Angelica:

Like I said before, the motto of the narcissist, the motto of someone with mpd, is to lie till you die. Lie till you die.Okay, and this we know are lies. You know she's this, this is a whole uh, hoax, and this is just meant to annihilate Johnny some more. This is all meat to just throw him under the bus some more and, you know, feigning that she has PTSD symptoms,  I've created a whole video on the whole PTSD diagnosis. I have worked with many, many clients with PTSD, and I do not see PTSD with her. C-PTSD, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, yes. Same for Johnny. But not PTSD. Ok, none of my clients with PTSD would be able to so easily go on and testify like that. I've have to wright letters excusing, you know, my clients from the courts because they are too anxious they're too frazzled, and, just go and check out my videos. I don't buy what she's saying here for one minute. We're not buying it.

Then there's more from the trial, accusations that Mr Depp did not only hit Ms Heard, but also her sister.

(41 min 38 sec).

Angelica:I don't believe this flying monkey either. OK, the flying monkeys are families and friends that will believe what the abuser tells them. They will side with the abuser, you know, and you know, from what I heard, Amber had been violent with her sister growing up, is what I heard in, in, this, uh, this court, in this whole trial. And, so, I don't know, I don't but she's siding with Amber, and this to me sounds like a flat out lie.

(42 min 15 sec,). More video from the trial. It is when Ms Heard is video recording Mr Depp in the kitchen as she abuse him verbally. It's called relational aggressiveness, and is typical for women (Crick and Grotpeter, 1995). Mr Depp's reaction is consistent with someone being abused.

During the trial, Ms Heard's legal representative, I think it was Mr Rottenborn, attributed Ms Heard's relational aggressiveness to Mr Depp by asking:

- you would agree that you were violent in that clip, correct?

Mr Rottenborn's behavior manifests the issues of legal trial and the methods sued. He is not reasoning, as would be the case when trying to validate facts, he is arguing, that is, the biological impulse to defend and standpoint.

Of course, because of their limited education, basically memorizing law and practice argumentation, a jurist can't understand intimate partner violence with the same depth as an expert.

Having said that, from the way they talk to each other, a person with a normal functioning mind can hear that Ms Heard is the perpetrator and Mr Depp the victim. I think Mr Rottenborn was aware of that.

Then the incident in Australia came up. That's when Ms Heard, crying when talking about it in the court room, described the harrowing incident. And these are her facial expressions during the presentation:

Now, does crying validate a statement?

The answer is no, but crying triggers a response of compassion of those who are listening and seeing the crying (Gelstein et al. 2011). That may sway their minds. But remember, we still don't know if it's true or not.

(43 min 54 sec.)

Angelica. So once again, just let me remind you that that was the scene in the Australia kitchen. This was after he had asked her for a post-nup agreement where she threw a fit, she went into hysterics and followed him into five bathrooms, two bedrooms, then he starts drinking again, and then after month of sobriety, then she throws the vodka bottle at him, severs his finger and like he said there yes, he assaulted a couple of cabinets, he did not hit her. When he threw the phone, he didn't throw it at her, he threw it away, because she was recording him, and she was recording him all the time.

Angelica then makes a remark from her previous relation, which in my view don't have anything to do with this case.

Obviously, Amber was recording him (Mr Depp) to use it against him. Now which she is doing now. You now, I think this whole thing was strategized for a long time.

(45 min). Ms Heard:

I am testifying about it, about sexual assault and domestic violence. Next to a jury in front of a packed courtroom of people who are expressing their vocal support and disdain from me.

This is how Ms Heard's facial expressions looked like when she said that:

(45 min 30 sec.) Depp's legal team pointed out that the allegation only came up after her divorce in court.

During the testimony it becomes obvious that Ms Heard can't validate any of her claims. For example, she claimed that she was assaulted in the vaginal area to such an extent that she was bleeding. But there's no medical records to support the claim.

(46 min 25 sec.) Ms Guthrie:

There's no polite way to say it, the jury looked at the evidence you presented, they listened to your testimony, and they did not believe you. They thought you were lying.

And this is Ms Heard's facial expressions when she heard that:

(46 min 35 sec.) Ms Heard:

How could they. I put it this way. How could they make a judgement, how could they not come to that conclusion, they had sat in that, in those seats, and heard through over three weeks of non-stop relentless testimony from paid employees and towards the end of the trial, randos (that probably refers to Kate Moss).

Check out Ms Heard's expression when she mentions "randos":

(47 min). Ms Guthrie. So you don't blame the jury?

Ms Heard.

I don't blame them, it wasn't, I don't blame them, I actually understand he's a beloved character .....

She seems to make up the discourse intuitively, and this is how her facial expressions look like when she's doing that:

(47 min 30 sec.).

Angelica. Okay, I think the paid employees and the "randos" were from your side, from Amber's side.

(47 min 50 sec.) Ms Heard:

There's a binder worth of years of notes, dating back to 2011, from the very beginning of my relationship that was taken by my doctor who I was reporting the abuse to.

(48 min 5 sec.). Ms Guthrie:

That doctor was Amber's therapist at the time. We looked at notes the doctor took during some of their sessions which showed that as far back as 2012 Amber was talking about physical abuse. In January of that year she told her therapist Depp hit her, and threw her on the floor. Eight month after that ripped her nightgown, threw her on the bed, and in 2013, the therapist's note say, he threw her against the wall and threatened to kill her.

(48 min 35 sec.) Ms Heard:

Her notes represented years, years of real-time explanations of what was going on.

My comment. This is not evidence of domestic abuse, it's Ms Heard's claim of domestic abuse. If the therapist noted that the client was hurt by being thrown the way Ms Heard claimed she was, the therapist should have rushed Ms Heard to a hospital for medical examination and then reported it to the police. But the therapist took notes.

The judge dismissed those notes, because they don't count as evidence.

The evidence from the trial showed that Ms Heard was the perpetrator of domestic abuse. Because of her mental issues (cluster b personality disorder), it's not unlikely that she made the story up, and even counted that the therapist could be used as a witness.

(49 min 5 sec.)

Angelica. Okay folks this is why I said that Amber would be back. This is why I said she's just getting started. Okay. After the trial was finished I said in my videos in one of my videos, I said she's just getting started, because I knew that the smear campaign would really get going. Once this is all over with, okay, and what she's doing now is all part of the smear campaign. This is why she went on dateline, because she' still trying to smear his name all over the world, you know, she's still trying to annihilate him. And the thing is, with an abuser with, you know, somebody with mpd, they thrive on the drama. Okay. This is their fuel. They don't stop. She will not stop. This is why anybody that's in an abusive relationship, this is what the person goes through. This is what we've all been through is this drama, this extreme drama, and it keeps going, even after you're out of the relationship the drama doesn't stop. Okay. The person doesn't stop, it keeps going, okay, the abuser is not just gonna walk and you leave you alone, no that's not what happens. They keep going, they keep trying to engage you, you know, it's up to the victim to disengage.  The victim is the one that has to step out of the drama, you know, this is why Johnny's doing, Johnny is living his best life now that's exactly what he needs to do.

(50 min 50 sec.) Guthrie. Amber plans to appeal and to move on.

(50 min 55 sec.) Ms Heard:

I, look, forward to living my life (she whispers the word life for some reason), and I have a long one, I hope, in front of me.

And this is how her facial expressions look when she says that:

(51 min 5 sec.)

Angelica. If she was looking forward to living her life and moving on, she wouldn't be here. She wouldn't be, you know, going on the news like this, and doing these interviews, if that's all she wanted to do. No, she's continuing doing the drama that she's known her entire life. This it's what's happening. Right here, right now.

(51 min 27 sec). Ms Heard:

I will continue to walk through this with my chin up ...

And this is how her facial expression look like when she said that:

Ms Heard met Mr Depp when she was 23 years old. And when their relationship was formally announced, she was still between 20-30 years of age. This is the age-span when:

1. - most women want to have kids.
   
   
2. - It's also the age-span when women's domestic violence is most prevalent.

Based on the evidence presented during the trial, I truly believe that Ms Heard's:

1. is suffering from Multiple personality Disorder, what Angelica referred to as MPD.
   
   
2. may also suffering from Delusional Disorder (APA).
   
   
3. Is heart-broken because of Mr Depp's decision to leave her. This is a bigger issue for women compared to men.

In my view, those are the reasons why Amber Heard can't give up, admit and move on.

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