. In the beginning of the movie John Nash is presented as a mad genius or a typical stressed college student. He had received a scholarship to Princeton University, this is the place where he started displaying his illness. Nash’s mind was always working to figure out solutions to some unknown problem, however, his actions go way beyond the normal “mad genius”. Nash is mentally ill with one of the worst mental disorders, schizophrenia. In multiple scenes he shows significant signs of biological, psychological and social schizophrenia. Such as repetitive and agitated movements, delusions, and paranoia. For a majority of the film he is actively delusional, seeing and hearing people that aren’t there. “Hearing voices is actually more common and one of the key symptoms in making a diagnosis of schizophrenia” (Ciccarelli & White, 2013, p. 477).
2. About fifteen minutes in A Beautiful Mind (2002), you see how Nash socially interacts. In this scene, two men approach the punch table talking, not noticing Nash, until he lightly insults at one of the gentlemen’s ties. Two more people join the small party around the table, the group have a trivial conversation until Nash excuses himself and heads back to his dorm (A Beautiful Mind, 2002). During this scene Nash displayed agitated movements and disorganized speech, in which both of these are major signs of schizophrenia (Ciccarelli & White, 2013, p. 477). In a later scene, Nash has basically lived in the library of the university for
In the movie A Beautiful Mind, which primarily takes place in the 1950s, John Nash exhibits signs of schizophrenia. He shows both positive and negative signs of the disorder. However, the movie does not portray all symptoms of schizophrenia accurately. Throughout Nash’s life-long battle with his illness, his family is dramatically affected. Overall, the movie implements a positive stigma of the disorder. While John Nash’s journey with his illness is not an entirely accurate depiction, the movie gives a positive light and awareness to schizophrenia.
John Nash is an intensely unsociable man. Throughout the movie, ‘A Beautiful Mind’ he shows that in a few different ways. First of all, John Nash shows that he an intensely unsociable man when his wife finds out that his best friend is a not a real person. It’s just a figment of his imagination. He has no real friends. Secondly, he shows that he is unsociable because he eats and works alone at Princeton. He prefers to work alone in the library as opposed to being with his classmates in the faculty lounge. Lastly, he showed that he
John Nash was extremely intelligent man but let his work take over a lot of his life. I would describe his attitude as cocky as he believed he was much smarter than others and loved to prove it which is shown in the beginning with the board game between him and Hanson. I figured that he was one that knew he was there for the education and not to party like his fellow classmates were doing. He would stay in his room studying and figuring out the hardest math problems and working them on the windows. Figuring out math problems was what made his day.The clues that were the most alarming were when Nash and Charles are sitting on the roof they are chatting on a university building roof and getting to know each other better. Nash and Charles are
The evidence of the cognitive symptoms, as with any disease, is more difficult to see externally in a person suffering from Schizophrenia. John Nash was not a very social person and I believe that this is attributed to the inability of expressing thoughts and feelings caused by the disease. His office in the movie looks somewhat like what I imagined the inside of his mind to look like; cluttered. Pictures on top of articles, on top of more pictures. There were papers hanging from the ceiling and string connecting pictures while forming patterns. One pattern I saw repeated a few times throughout the film was a spider- web image. This to me just shows how everything in his mind seemed as though it was connected in some way.
2.The most highly visible aspects of Nash’s condition are of course his elaborate delusions and hallucinations (creating friends and relationships that don’t in fact exist) and his paranoia (for example, his belief that the hospital is run by the Soviets). DSM-V lists negative symptoms--alogia, anhedonia and avolition--that we don’t see in the film. When Nash is medicated and flailing in his life--unable to focus on his work and unable to respond to his crying child--he asks his wife, “What do people do?” It’s then that we see the most mood disorder-related aspects: avolition, defined as a lack of will and self-direction, and anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure. Alogia may be indicated when Alicia says to Nash on their picnic date by the lake, “You don’t talk much, do you?” and Nash responds,
Another common symptom of schizophrenia is anhedonia. This is “the inability to experience pleasure or sustain interests in activities” (Cara & MacRae, 2005). Nash definitely experienced this symptom. Nash had the opportunity to make
I think for the most part the movie did a good job portraying schizophrenia as it is in reality. Nash experienced delusions of grandeur that blurred the lines between reality and imagination, illuminating a powerful example of just how debilitating schizophrenia can be. Auditory hallucination is the most common symptom found in schizophrenia. The one’s experienced by Nash in the film were in-line with how the DSM specifies them to be. The film puts a large emphasis on the paranoia experienced by Nash. In the DSM-IV, paranoia was a specifier for a sub-category of schizophrenia, called paranoid schizophrenia. The new version of the DSM does not include paranoia as a specifier for schizophrenia, rather it is viewed as a comorbid mental disorder. One aspect I thought was overdone concerns the visual hallucinations. It was necessary for the entertainment value of the film, but is largely inaccurate in its attempt to represent the visual hallucinations experienced by individuals who have schizophrenia. Visual hallucinations are not common in schizophrenia, especially not to the degree the movie depicts, in which whole scenarios and events are vividly made up. I think it is a common misconception that visual hallucinations are a hallmark of schizophrenia. I think that the producers of this movie included
Unfortunately his medication disrupts his relationship with his wife almost as much as his delusions did in the first place. For example, he couldn't respond to his wife in bed, he couldn't show affection to their child, and he couldn't do simple tasks around the house. He stops taking his medication and falls back into his paranoid delusions. Nash has a breakthrough and realizes that the people he is seeing are hallucinations when he realizes that none of them age.
John Nash is well above average in terms of intellectual functioning. He is diagnosed with schizophrenia. He first started exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia when he attended Princeton University. The symptoms that were observed were hallucinations and delusions. In Nash’s mind, he had a college roommate name Charles Herman. In addition, he stated that he met Herman’s niece named Marcee and a secret agent named William Parcher, whom he worked for at a secret location by breaking Russian codes. He developed persecutory delusions while working for William Parcher because he believe that Russians are trying to kill him for
In the movie it seemed like he did not have a lack of social involvement with the outside world but once the viewer realized that the roommate and Parcher were not real then it all came together. All of Nash’s symptoms started when he began looking for his original idea to be published. The DSM5 says the reaction to stress causes individuals with schizophrenia to have increases in negative mood and behaviors. I believe the stress of trying to find something new pushed him over the edge and forced him to create a world that helped him cope with the pressure but in reality it created more work for him to do. Nash’s over all functions in everyday life were impaired due to his disorder. After going to the psychiatric hospital and beginning his medication he began to suffer from intellectual paralysis cause by the medication. His delusion might have gone away but his work and overall well-being suffered which caused him to stop taking the medication and have another psychic
“A Beautiful mind” is a story based on the life of John Forbes Nash, who is a famous mathematician. Unfortunately, he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia that majorly affects his personal and social life. Schizophrenia is a psychological disorder in which the patient’s ability to function is impaired by severely distorted beliefs, perceptions, and thought processes (Hockenbury, 2010).
In the movie, "A Beautiful Mind", the main character, John Nash, is a mathematician who suffers from schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is actually the most chronic and disabling of the major mental illnesses and it distorts the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, interprets reality and relates to others.
According to the DMV-IV John Nash was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia because of certain criteria he showed, hallucinations and delusions. It is listed in the DMV-IV as 295.30 Paranoid Type-Schizophrenia (DSM-IV, 1994). Dr. Nash had a break from reality when he
John Nash suffers from Paranoid Schizophrenia. He is a gifted mathematician who began graduate school at Princeton University in 1947. We will begin Mr. Nash’s history from this point in time, for it is here that his symptoms first began to emerge. During this time in his life he is in what is known as the prodromal phase of schizophrenia, which is a period before active
One aspect depicted throughout the film are the various mannerisms of schizophrenia. Nash 's character often displays agitated movements which are sometimes jerky in motion. Many times this is shown with head movements, hand gestures and even agitated pacing. This coincides with the National Institute of Mental Health 's (2009) description of the mannerisms associated with schizophrenia. Individuals with diagnosed schizophrenia can display a flat affect, with no emotion and diminished facial expressions, as well as a catatonic stupor becoming non-responsive to any type of stimulus (National Institute