Beautiful Mind Case Study

From the beginning of the movie, it was obvious John Nash was different from those around him. He rarely made eye contact with anyone. He rarely spoke unless it was of his passion, math. He rarely stopped working and thinking about one area, his work. While schizophrenia was not the only probable reason for this behavior, the symptoms aligned. Many psychologists would have seen the signs immediately, but not being a professional, I was unaware of the specific mental disorder or illness Nash exhibited many of these symptoms, but it wasn’t until later in the film that I realized why he had a psychological illness.

Throughout the duration of the film, John Nash appears to have a series of positive symptoms. According to King, positive symptoms “reflect something added above and beyond normal behavior”. This generalization is clearly evident in A Beautiful Mind. The most visible symptom that can be seen in John Nash’s behavior is his psychomotor movements. King states that “a person with schizophrenia may show unusual mannerisms, body movements, and facial expressions”. In the film, John Nash demonstrates these movements through

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,

In addition to hallucinations and delusions, other symptoms were portrayed in the film. Nash was constantly suspicious of the people around him. This was a result of his belief that the Russians were after him. For example, when Nash was taken to the psychiatric hospital, he thought that Dr. Rosen was Russian and trying to stop him from doing his work. As a result, Nash resorted to violence in order to protect himself.

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.

An alternative diagnosis that I would have given Nash had it not been ruled out by his obvious and severe signs of paranoid schizophrenia would have been bipolar I. This disorder encompasses many overlapping symptoms with his true diagnosis. “Bipolar I is the category in which mania is present and although not required may also show symptoms of depression” (Ray, 2015, p. 268). Nash never presented any signs of being depressed but he did experience periods of time where he seemed to be manic. He exhibits an inflated self-esteem and grandiosity through the duration of the film. After he begins working for the Pentagon, Nash begins to get obsessive about his work (a goal-directed activity) and starts sleeping less. These are all symptoms of bipolar I and Nash presented them all at different points of the movie. I ultimately ruled out this disorder because his positive symptoms of schizophrenia could not be explained by bipolar

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

A Beautiful Mind is an inspiring story about triumph over schizophrenia, among the most devastating and disabling of all mental disorders. A Beautiful Mind succeeds in realistically describing the disturbed thinking, emotion, perception, and behavior that characterizes the disorder, and shows the difficult task of management of and/or recovery from the disorder. The movie communicates the vital importance of the factors that contributed to Nash's recovery and achievement of his amazing potential as a gifted intellectual. For instance, Nash was treated with dignity and respect by most of his academic peers. Social support and tolerance enabled him to regain his capacity for productive work that led to his receipt of the Nobel Prize for

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 portray a man that develops Schizophrenia throughout the movie. Schizophrenia according to, Licht, Hull, and Ballantyne 2017 is a “psychological disorder that includes delusion, hallucination, disorganized speech, and abnormal speech”. According to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders[DSM-5] Fifth Edition,2014, John Nash

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.

In the film A Beautiful Mind, the protagonist John Nash suffers with the mental condition of paranoid schizophrenia. The film examines Nash’s healthy years while attending Princeton University and starting his family, then depicts the deterioration of his cognitive abilities. Through Nash’s character, the film was successful in illustrating the typical symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. Negative symptoms like social isolation and mistrust were presented accurately, as were positive symptoms like hallucinations and delusions. The progression of Nash’s paranoid schizophrenia was thoroughly depicted through displays such as his increasing fear of persecution. This fear progressed with his illness, producing significant impairment and distress. Nash displayed coping strategies when his overwhelming symptoms caused him to withdraw from the social contact. Over time,

These symptoms are: Delusions which are strange beliefs that are not based in reality. Another positive symptom are hallucinations which makes people hear voices, feel touched when they are not touched and see things that are not really there.

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