The Boy Next Door Movie Psychology

Psychology played an important role for the 2015 thriller film The Boy Next Door. The film is about Claire Peterson, a high school teacher who ends up having a one night stand with one of her students. Noah, the student who had the uncontrollable obsession with Claire, has made it clear he was not going to let her go. The film uses multiple aspects of psychology in order to describe Claire and Noah’s relationship. These aspects has helped made The Boy Next Door a suspenseful psychological thriller.

After discovering her husband had an affair at work, Claire Peterson fell into a stage of depression. Sigmund Freud would have taken Claire’s case and analyze through a psychodynamic perspective. Freud would have believed that there would be something much more disturbing earlier on in her life was affecting Claire’s relationship. This would be a psychodynamic view on Claire’s relationship problems. Claire’s actions could also be determined through a humanistic view. There was one scene where she was looking in mirror and comparing her ideal self to her reality self. Through the humanistic view this would be a form of self actualization. Self actualization is whenever

However after things go wrong she then decides that things are never going to get better for her. This perspective can be seen as a learned helplessness. Claire’s view on life seems hopeless until one night she goes next door with Noah. After giving into temptation, Claire ends up having a one night stand with her Noah. Claire immediately becomes anxious and leaves Noah. The rest of the day Claire experiences a few mood swings throughout her day. Claire normally has an agreeableness characteristic trait, however she jumps into an extraversion trait. The reason why she switched up a bit of her personality was to avoid having attention on herself. Tensions begin to rise as Claire tries her best to Noah out of her