Elizabeth Patterson Character Analysis

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A woman came into my office in the Salinas County Psychiatric Clinic today, so I assigned her case number 8732. Before I start my clinical report I would like to mention that I will use my colleague John Steinbeck’s research novel, Of Mice and Men , Symptommedia.com’s article on Histrionic personality disorder, and Psychcentral.com’s article on Histrionic Personality disorder. My client’s name is Elizabeth Patterson, and she is a twenty year old woman married to a Curley Patterson. She has no work or educational history and is a housewife. As a child she had a very poor relationship with her mother, and her father died when she was at the age of six. She had an aspiration to be an actress in hollywood ever since she was a child and was “offered”…show more content…
Patterson is seeking attention and filled with delusion, on account of being ostracized by the people around her. For example, when Elizabeth visited the bunkhouse to “ask the boys where Curley was” she, “Put her hands behind her back and leaned against the doorframe so that her body was thrown forward,”(31). This makes it obvious that she is using her body as a tool very provocatively in order to elicit attention from the men in the bunkhouse. During her interview she also mentioned that she felt very unwelcome and that even though the men seemed to not want her there she enjoyed being there, though she did not know why. Another piece of evidence that was derived from an interview with her was when she explained the time that she had poured out her feelings to Lennie saying, “Coulda been in the movies, an’ had nice clothes. . . Because this guy says I was a natural,”. This points to the fact that Elizabeth is, and was, very delusional. She is delusional enough to believe that because a “guy” said that she was a natural she would become a famous actress in hollywood. According to Symptommedia.com a symptom of Histrionic Personality Disorder is that one is, ”Being overly concerned with one’s looks.”. It is easily seen that Mrs. Patterson fits this description like a glove as a quote from John Steinbeck’s documentary novel reads, ”A girl was standing there looking in. She had full,rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung…show more content…
Patterson. According to Psychcentral.com,”The causes are likely due to biological and genetic factors, social factors, and psychological factors,”. I believe that she is mostly affected by the social and psychological factors because of her previously mentioned she had a very poor social life as a child, and continues that trend now with her unloving husband, and the ostracism that she faces each and every day. She also had a presumably poor psychological upbringing, considering that she had a poor relationship with her mother, no relationship with her father, and very little life experience considering how young she is. Her poor psychological upbringing also led to her palpable lack of judgement, examples of which include believing anybody who told her that they could get her to hollywood, and marrying a man that she didn’t love in order to get away from her mother to chase her hollywood dream. It is very easily discernable that Mrs. Patterson thirsts for attention, but it is harder to discern what causes it. Although it may be difficult to pinpoint where Mrs. Patterson went wrong I believe that her interview with Mr. Steinbeck holds the answer, when she said,”Think I don’t like to talk to someone ever’ once in a while? Think I like to stick in that house alla time?,”(77). This leads me to believe that Mrs. Patterson’s intense drive for attention

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