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A Beautiful Mind: a Case Study Essay

Decent Essays

Running head: A BEAUTIFUL MIND 1

A Beautiful Mind:
A Case Study

A BEAUTIFUL MIND 2

Diagnostic Impression:

Axis I 295.30 Schizophrenia, Paranoid Type, Continuous
Axis II V71.09 No Diagnosis
Axis III None
Axis IV Psychosocial and Educational Stressors
Axis V GAF = 55 (highest level in past 30 years)

Case Study:
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 …show more content…

In 1953, Mr. Nash was summoned to the pentagon to help decipher intercepted Russian messages, and it was upon leaving that he first noticed a mysterious man by the name of William Parcher, who is actually another hallucination. Parcher later approaches Mr. Nash at night and takes him to what appears to be a code breaker lab set up in an old warehouse. It is here that he is asked if he will help the Department of Defense by deciphering codes in certain newspapers and periodicals, at which time a devise is implanted into his arm. However, this entire experience is nothing more than an elaborate delusion and hallucination.

Mr. Nash accepts this assignment, and gradually he becomes completely fixated on doing nothing except code extraction. Around this same time he is asked to dinner by one of his students, Alicia, whom he is almost immediately intrigued by. It is while on this date that his delusional content shifts. Up to this point, his delusions and hallucinations had, for the most part, played into his grandiosity, however, this night, a persecutory theme emerges, as he notices suspicious men watching him.

He continues to see Alicia, while at the same time remaining engrossed in his secret life of code breaking and paranoia. Mr. Nash eventually asks Alicia to marry him, and at the ceremony he sees Parcher parked across the street watching him. Not long after this, while making a package drop-off, a frantic Parcher, who informs him that they

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