A Beautiful Mind Schizophrenia Analysis

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.

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

Seeing as Nash's experiences in the film follow the Type II diagnosis (DSM-IV-TR) one could reasonably expect that his symptoms would follow in the same diagnostic pattern. But, instead of coming on slowly and consistently, these auditory and visual hallucinations come on acutely (actually almost immediately). This extremely acute onset of serious symptoms is out of line with what should be occurring. What should be shown is slowly deteriorating symptoms that are in line with increasingly complex delusions. The onset of delusions after the hallucinations is also outside the norm of the differential of Schizophrenia, although not impossible.

Additional, inferences about the disorder are provided by Whitcomb and Merrell (2013). The authors characterize the symptoms of schizophrenia as delusions that are “typically bizarre and implausible” and pronounced hallucinations such as hearing voices for long periods of time (p. 363). Additional, impairments noted by the authors include “severe disturbances in perception, thought and affect, a severe decline in personal and social functioning, poor personal hygiene, inability to function effectively at school or work, and a severe impairment in social relationships” (Whitcomb and Merrell, 2013 p.363).

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

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.

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.

Classifying behavior is difficult because nothing is purely black and white. Symptoms often vary depending on the person, which makes any given disorder, especially schizophrenia, hard to 100% diagnose. For this reason, I will be supporting the thesis that the diagnosis of schizophrenia is appropriate for John Nash according to the DSM-V- hence the italicized term “appropriate.” Based on what we know, the research we have conducted and the data that we have collected, this is the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia in a condensed version:

There was a point in the movie where Nash hallucinates that Harris planted a device in his arm that allows him to see a code using ultra violet rays. Supposedly this device leads him to open a secret place, where he secretly cracks codes to help the government. However, this is all a creation of Nash’s imagination. Criterion B for schizophernia negative symptoms was also met throughout the film because it seemed that John Nash was always occupied by being an over achiever and afraid of failure. Criterion C was also met because his delusions and hallucinations were portrayed and carried on throughout the whole film from beginning to end. Mood disorders, substance abuse and history of previous medical conditions can all be ruled out because none of these were shown. Along with all this Nash fell under the Paranoid subtype throughout the movie because he always seemed to be occupied with his duty as a government spy and having to fulfill his duty. This was shown through Nash by always putting his duty as a government spy before his wife, his job as a professor at Princeton, having his office cluttered/ disorganized and filled with magazine cut outs that he believed were helping him crack codes for the government as to where the Russians had the bombs hidden.

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.

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

At the time of Nash's diagnosis, only the older treatment models for schizophrenia were available. Those models viewed patients with schizophrenia as hopeless cases who needed to stabilized with hospitalization. While being hospitalized the patients are maintained with medications, such as Thorazine. These medications had heavy tranquilizing effects and made management of patients easier. But the drugs being induced only suppressed the disease; the drugs could neither arrest nor reverse the positive symptoms. As a result Nash resisted his medications, and the positive symptoms returned. What is fascinating is that Nash himself applied a form of Self-Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy, and that this actually did work. The basic premise of cognitive therapy is that beliefs, expectations, and assessments of self and the world affect how we perceive ourselves and others, how we approach problems, and how successful we are in coping and in achieving goals. This is a contemporary treatment model for schizophrenia, and certainly in the case of John Nash, is arguably indicated.

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

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