Amanda Wingfield and Blanche Dubois

Over the years, in my post as clinical psychiatric at River Oaks Hospital in New Orleans I've found that in today's rough and tough world, there seems to be no room for failure. The pressure to succeed in life sometimes seems unreasonable. My two clients, Amanda Wingfield and Blanche Dubois are two very similar characters. Although there is little or no physical resemblances between them, they are in many other ways alike. Their accents, for instance, layered with a clipped southern twang, were almost identical. Neither woman are capable of living in the present and facing reality. In order for them to deal with the problems and hardships in their lives they retreat into their own separate worlds of illusion and lies.

When both clients entered my office, my opinion on both of them differed quite significantly. Miss Dubois floated into my office with a childlike manner, requesting the lights were dimmed immediately. There was something very intriguing about Miss Dubois. Her clothes were strange, to say the least. She was dressed in a fake beauty queen crown and a fancy looking gown. Her need for darkness and the child-like clothes, almost instantly marked her departing youth and advancing age. Once the lights were dimmed and Miss Dubois had a lemon coke, her nerves were settled and she was ready to talk. Amanda on the other hand, came walking into my office and without even introducing herself, had already told me about the Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain, when she received, not one, but seventeen gentlemen callers. Miss Wingfields clothing was a lot more subtle but still gave the same impression as Miss Dubois's. She was dressed in a lime green, flowling dress with her hair in tight golden curls. Again, with Amanda, I could see that her re-telling of the story about the seventeen gentlemen callers and the young girl clothing, that just as Blanche, Amanda also has an obsession with youth.