"The Roommate" Entry 2

I believe social learning and social skills training are the psychotherapy that would be helpful for the character Rebecca.  Social skills are used to train new responses and eliminate negative or abnormal behaviors.

With Rebecca not knowing how to communicate with others, social skills training will help her learn how to have social conversations and learn to understand people's feelings without being hostile or judgmental. Social learning will allow Rebecca to observe, imitate and role play with the therapist demonstrating appropriate social behavior.  These techniques will help Rebecca in socially relating to people. I think a behavioral approach therapy such as this is best suited for Rebecca because some of her biggest problems is relating to other, understanding other people's behaviors and controlling her negative behavior.  Rebecca tends to either respond to people with hostility or have an absence of feelings with just a blank stare which later turns violent.  Not understanding others behaviors or queues has an adverse effect on Rebecca so social learning can also help her become more aware of her own behavior. Social learning is more concerned about normal behavior being learned through imitation and less focused on what is the cause of the abnormal behavior as compared to other therapies that may find it more important to focus on the root cause in order to treat the problem.

Movie "The Roommate"

"The Roommate" is about a freshman college student name Rebecca attending the University of Los Angeles, who quickly develops an obsession for her roommate Sara. Rebecca suffers from a psychological disorder but she is not taking her medication which is used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar. Several scenes in the movie show Rebecca is very sweet and pleasant with her roommate Sara but anti-social, hostile and violet around any of her roommate’s friends. Rebecca is very protective of Sara and do not want anyone else around her, particularly anyone Sara cares about or who cares about Sara. In Rebecca’s mind Sara’s friends are not good for her. Rebecca appears to be delusional about the relationship between her and Sara even considering herself to be the sister Sara lost.  She will even hurt herself to gain the attention of Sara and to pull her away from others. Rebecca does not seem close to her parents who actually seem a little afraid of her. They are very pleasant and polite to Rebecca while Rebecca seems to be somewhat distant and uninterested towards them.


 A model of therapy I would use is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help manage unhealthy behaviors and reduce distress that may be encountered in everyday life. Rebecca did not socialize or interact with other people aside from her roommate unless it was in a hostile way.  Her perception is distorted and her behavior is irrational. 


 Beau, M.(Producer), Davison, D.(Producer), Lee, R.(Producer), Mallhi, S.(Producer), & Christiansen, C.(Director). (2011). The Roommate [Motion picture].
United States: Sony Pictures.