A Beautiful Mind: Psychological Disorders Essay

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.

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.

Ron Howard has used cinematography and special effects to create impact as it engages the audience. It helps introduce an excellent main character and helps us experience the reality of the mental illness. We see most of the film through the Nash's point of view, helping us understand his situation and the reality of his delusions. Characters who are in Nash's hallucinations are always seen from his point of view through handheld camera shots. A good example of these point of view shots is the scene where Nash believes Parcher is going to hurt Alicia and his child so he lunges at her in an attempt to protect her. However we also see through Alicia's point of view that “John, there's nobody there” and Nash seems to be attacking her through a senseless act of violence.

In the film " A Beautiful Mind" John Nash experiences a few different positive symptoms. The first of these positive symptoms are seen through the hallucinations John has of having a room -mate while at Princeton. This room- mate continues to stay "in contact" with John through out his adult life and later this room- mate's niece enters Johns mind as another coinciding hallucination. Nash's other hallucination is Ed Harris, who plays a government agent that seeks out Nash's intelligence in the field of code- breaking.

John Nash’s character in the movie suffered from positive, negative, and disorganized symptoms of psychosis, but some played larger roles in his life and were a prominent part of the movie. Perhaps the most debilitating symptom was his hallucinations. One usually thinks hallucinations are just hearing things or occasionally seeing something that is not there, but in the case of Nash, he experienced auditory and visionary hallucinations quite frequently. The director of the film did not directly reveal his hallucinations to be real until halfway through the movie. The main character meets his “roommate” within the first few scenes, which seems somewhat strange to an audience member, but the actor goes along with it. Charles Herman, the “roommate”, begins to play a large role in his life and is almost always with John. Herman later introduces his niece to Nash, and the pair quickly form a bond. Eventually, the hallucinations are so delusional that he begins to believe a man from the US

Let me start off by first saying that I am not a master of Psychology and my argument is based on factual information collected from the DSM-V paired with my own personal opinions. Secondly, I am writing this essay based on the biographical film, A Beautiful Mind, which after researching online, did not accurately represent all of John Nash’s symptoms. Of course, as with any film, there are large time gaps that make it difficult to specify when and for how long Nash’s psychotic symptoms persisted. However, I will try my best-pardon the lengthy disclaimer.

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.

He slowly begins to become paranoid and have delusions that affect his relationship with his wife and peers around him. After being a witness to a shooting between Nash’s friend and Soviet agents, Nash believes that agents are out to get him and he becomes incredibly paranoid. He eventually gets sent to a psychiatric facility due to his behavior and gets diagnosed with paranoid

Was I a danger to myself?” (p.39). Initially, she had difficulty seeing her symptoms being connected to her diagnosed illness as well as their graveness. She asserts, “I had a character disorder. Sometimes they called it a personality disorder. When I got my diagnosis it didn’t sound serious but after a while it sounded more ominous than other people’s” (Kaysen, 1994, p. 59). John Nash viewed his diagnosis in a similar manner as Kaysen did. He was in denial at first and did not see his delusions as a part of his problem even though his wife confronted him with evidence such as unopened secret letters. He slowly over a year’s time began to accept his diagnosis of schizophrenia. He finally accepted it when he stopped taking medication and the return of the delusions put his family at risk. He made the vital connection when he wife wanted to leave. Nash tells his wife, “I understand, Marcee can’t be real because she never gets old (Howard, 2001). After that revelation, he realizes that his delusions are not real because the people in them never age including the eight-year girl that calls him her uncle.

How was he treated for his paranoid schizophrenia? Nash tried different treatment plans; however, I will focus on a few of the major ones. John Nash unfortunately suffered from schizophrenia during a period of time when the knowledge surrounding such illnesses was scarce. In January 1961, his wife submitted him to the Trenton-State Hospital in New Jersey where he would undergo Insulin-Coma Therapy (ICT): “an aggressive and risky treatment,” in which people were injected with insulin to induce comas. (“People and Events: John Nash (1928-),” 1999; Sargant & Slater, 1994 ). “The ICT mortality rate ranged from 1 to 10% of patients treated” (“Primary Source: Insulin Coma Therapy,” 2002). However, “at the time, ICT and ECT [(Electroconvulsive Therapy)] were the only treatments that offered the possibility of successful resolution of a dreaded disorder” (“Primary Source: Insulin Coma Therapy,” 2002). Following this treatment, Nash was placed on antipsychotic medication and his psychological state improved for a while until he decided to stop taking his pills. He believed they were affecting his thinking. From ICT to drugs, Nash underwent different treatment plans and stayed at different hospitals: from McLean in Massachusetts to Trenton State in New Jersey. However, in the end, he simply stopped taking his pills and went on with his life. What would come of

Nash was affected by schizophrenia in many of different ways. He became very antisocial and had odd behavior, lacking social skills, movements, and actions. Nash was getting to a point where he couldn’t focus on math or simple jobs. He was having delusions. Thoughts of messages, different people, etc.

In the movie A Beautiful Mind John Nash was diagnosed with schizophrenia. This was evident throughout the movie, even before the diagnosis was directly stated. Many of his symptoms became more and more obvious. He suffered from delusions when he imagined his roommate and his roommate’s niece were there, and when he thought that he worked for the FBI and there were people hunting him down. His speech became disorganized and less coherent the worse he became.

Early in the movie, Nash begins developing paranoid schizophrenia and endures delusional episodes while painfully watching the loss and burden his condition brings on his wife and friends.2. Another scene, he is giving a speech and suddenly two men appear in the background. John panics and runs away

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

John Nash suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and the most prominent symptom of paranoid schizophrenia is “absurd or suspicious ideas and beliefs” (Smith & Segal, 2013). Over the course of the film, Nash demonstrates these symptoms. The ideas of delusions of persecution are the most frequent beliefs thought of by the individual and typically revolve around a centralized theme that remains consistent over time (Smith & Segal, 2013). People with paranoid schizophrenia tend to have mistaken beliefs that one or more persons are plotting against them and putting their loved ones in harm’s way (Berger, 2012). With this condition, they end up spending a lot of time thinking about how to protect themselves from the person or people they believe are trying to hurt them (Berger, 2012). People with paranoid schizophrenia show a history of increasing paranoia and difficulties