A Beautiful Mind Disorder

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

1. The psychological disorder portrayed in character of John Nash in the film A Beautiful Mind is schizophrenia. The most prominent symptoms were hallucinations, grandiose delusions, paranoia, a persecutory complex. Beginning with DSM-V, two or more symptoms from the list of schizophrenic criteria must be present for at least six months and active for at least one month. John Nash certainly qualifies for another DSM-V criterion of diagnosis, social/occupational dysfunction, due to his apparent abandonment of relevant mathematical work in favor of conspiracy analysis/obsession. Nash is given the official diagnosis of schizophrenia during his admission to the mental hospital.

Both A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard, and The Soloist, directed by Joe Wright, are films that attempt to explore the obstacles people with schizophrenia face in a society where mental illness is often met with negative stigma. From finding sufficient treatment to maintaining an independent lifestyle, individuals with schizophrenia are put under a great deal of pressure to meet social norms despite the sometimes debilitating and emotionally draining effects of their disease. A Beautiful Mind and The Soloist highlight these struggles, and because they are both based on true-stories, they are able to depict the realities of what living with a mental illness is like in a relatively realistic manner.

Our comprehension of human experience can be expanded through the viewing of a world outside our own. In A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard, a differing world engulfed with mental illness has been depicted through the life of mathematician John Nash and the subsequent human experience of the relationships built around it and the struggles associated. It is the responders’ observation of a differing world that leads to a greater understanding of the mental illness and the impact of relationships while allowing me to gain a greater compassion for those who suffer from mental illness.

A Beautiful Mind illustrates many of the topics relating to psychological disorders. The main character of the film, John Nash, is a brilliant mathematician who suffers from symptoms of Schizophrenia. His symptoms include paranoid delusions, grandiosity, and disturbed perceptions. The disease disrupts his social relationships, his studies, and his work. The more stressful his life becomes the more his mind is not able to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

In this essay I will discuss the mental disorder Schizophrenia and the ways in which John Forbes Nash the main character in the movie A Beautiful Mind dealt with it. I will also define the mental disorder; discuss the symptoms, the causes, the treatments, the relationship between violence and individuals who are diagnosed with Schizophrenia, the general public’s reaction towards people with Schizophrenia, and the ways in which people with Schizophrenia can help the general public and themselves in coping with this particular mental disorder and possibly other mental disorders.

A Beautiful Mind, a 2001 biographical drama, tells the story of John Nash; the film is based on a book by the same name, which was a biography of the real John Nash . The film depicts Nash’s life as he develops paranoid schizophrenia; this paper will focus on the film, the disorder itself, and the accuracies and inaccuracies of how paranoid schizophrenia was portrayed in the film.

A Beautiful Mind John Nash’s type of schizophrenia is paranoid schizophrenic. This condition is a common chronic mental disorder in which a person loses touch with reality. Paranoid Schizophrenics always believe they and their family members, are under attack. These types of schizophrenic patients deal with false schemes made up in their head. Usually, one whose experiencing this type of the disease also deal with intense hallucinations.

In the film, A Beautiful Mind, John Nash exhibited many visible symptoms of Schizophrenia. One is that he experienced delusions of persecution, which is the patient believing that others are plotting against him/her (Okami, 2014, pg.653). In A Beautiful Mind, Nash believed that the Russians were going to capture and kill him. He also experienced delusions of reference, which involve the patient believing that public messages were intended for that individual person. In A Beautiful Mind, Nash believed that the military was sending secret codes through newspapers that only he could decode.

Title In Ron Howard's work, A Beautiful Mind depicts the real life account of mathematical genius, Professor John Nash, and his struggle with paranoid Schizophrenia. In the beginning of the film, Nash displays early onset symptoms of schizophrenia such as disorganized speech and behavior towards his peers at Princeton University. An example of this is when Nash goes to a bar with a few friends and attempts to seduce a woman into sex. However due to his schizophrenic tendencies, he came across too blunt, aggressive, and awkward in his offer; insulting the woman and getting slapped as a result.

“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.

The movie Beautiful Mind is about Dr. John Nash who is a mathematical genius and a natural code breaker, at least in his own mind. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia which is a psychological disorder. According to Baird (2011), paranoid schizophrenia is when a person has “delusions of grandeur and persecution often accompanied by hallucinations” (p. 273). The person has a split from real life circumstances, where their new reality becomes actual fact to them.

A Beautiful Mind Depicts the story of mathematical genius John Nash, and his battle with schizophrenia. When the audience is first introduced to Nash he is working to make a great discovery while attending graduate school. From the beginning, it is clear that Nash puts excessive pressure on himself to achieve this goal. Of course, his hard work eventually lead him to attain his objectives, but the stressful environment it created likely also triggered his schizophrenic tendencies. Although at the time of their meeting the audience is unaware, John’s Princeton roommate Charles turns out to be his initial hallucination. Later, when Nash is teaching at MIT a second hallucination appears in the form of a department of defense agent named William Parcher. Parcher seeks Nash out based on his skill in code braking, for a special assignment regarding their soviet enemies. The hallucinations reach a climax when Nash believes he and Parcher are being chased by Russians who uncovered their mission. Following this, when Nash is making an educational presentation, he appears to be paranoid about an angry group watching him. Abruptly, he ends his lecture to make an escape. Nash exhibits schizophrenic tendencies these two scenes, and periodically throughout the movie.