FEMALE PSYCHOPATH: Single White Female, Borderline & Psychopathy

When does needing someone turn into wanting to become them?

Content note: discussion of stalking, identity theft, violence and murder, an animal’s death in the film, and the stigma around borderline personality disorder.

In the second episode of our Female Psychopath series, we take on Single White Female (1992), with Bridget Fonda as Allie and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Hedy, the roommate who slowly borrows her life. We start with the kitchen faucet scene that most people would read as a meet-cute and we read as the first boundary violation, then follow how Hedy isolates Allie, gaslights her, and turns violent once her borrowed self starts to come apart. Then we bring the research: what happens in the body when psychopathic offenders and people with borderline personality disorder are shown frightening images, and why the two can look alike from the outside while one feels everything and the other feels very little.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy talk about why “why didn’t you just leave?” is victim blaming, how gaslighting makes you doubt your own reality, how borderline traits and psychopathy differ in motivation, why borderline personality disorder is far more treatable than its reputation, and why even experienced evaluators can be fooled.

Covered in this episode:

• Single White Female (1992), our second Female Psychopath film
• The faucet scene and the first boundary violation
• Gaslighting, isolation and “why didn’t you just leave?”
• Borderline personality traits: abandonment, emptiness, splitting
• Being female, mentally ill and stigmatized in Hollywood
• Research: fear, startle and emotion in psychopathy and BPD
• The two-factor model and secondary psychopathy
• Why diagnosis is so hard, and “what don’t I know?”
• Recommendations: Misery, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Fatal Attraction, Swimfan, The Crush and Play Misty for Me

Clinical themes: borderline personality disorder, primary and secondary psychopathy, identity diffusion, abandonment, gaslighting, victim blaming, stigma, assessment limits.

Corrections and updates: The actor is Jennifer Jason Leigh. Single White Female was directed by Barbet Schroeder and adapted from John Lutz’s novel SWF Seeks Same. In the film, Hedy claims her twin was stillborn, but a newspaper clipping shows her twin sister drowned when they were nine. The first study is Herpertz et al. (2001), “Emotion in criminal offenders with psychopathy and borderline personality disorder,” Archives of General Psychiatry. The second is López-Villatoro et al. (2018), “Borderline Personality Disorder with Psychopathic Traits: A Critical Review,” Clinical Medical Reviews and Case Reports.

Related episodes:

• FEMALE PSYCHOPATH: Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone & Jolly Jane Toppan
• Fatal Obsession: The Female Psychopath in Swimfan, The Loved Ones, Crush & The Roommate
• Female Psychopath Series - Stalkers in Fatal Attraction, Poison Ivy, Obsessed

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Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

Until then... sleep safe. 😴
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