These young women are all experiencing different types and degrees of mental illness. Some of these mental illnesses are sociopathy, pathological liar, and eating disorders. The movie offers insight into borderline personality disorder, as well as the other disorders that the young women are afflicted with. The movie’s definition of borderline personality disorder accurately demonstrates the current psychological definition, and much of the occurrences in the movie are very true to the disorder as a whole.
Susanna’s disorder is examined through her past experiences, such as sexual abuse by an older man, promiscuity, feelings that she did not fit in, and her relationships with friends. These are all significant symptoms of borderline personality disorder. According to The National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH] (2007), people with BPD exhibit other impulsive behaviors, such as excessive spending, binge eating and risky sex. During the movie, Susanna’s promiscuous behaviors were revealed as a pattern of impulsive behaviors that were present in her …show more content…
According to Corelli (n.d.), treatment for borderline personality disorder includes psychotherapy which allows the patient to talk about both present difficulties and past experiences in the presence of an empathetic, accepting and non-judgmental therapist. The therapy needs to be structured, consistent and regular, with the patient encouraged to talk about his or her feelings rather than to discharge them in his or her usual self-defeating ways. Sometimes medications such as antidepressants are useful for certain patients or during certain times in the treatment of individual patients. Group and individual psychotherapy are at least partially effective for many patients. Within the past fifteen years, a new psychosocial treatment termed dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was developed specifically to treat