A Case Study on the film a Beautiful Mind

A Case Study on Schizophrenia and Delusional Diss in the Film A Beautiful Mind

Abstract

The John Forbes Nash , Jr . biopic A Beautiful Mind (2001 ) detailed the dramatic rise and fall of the celebrated Nobel Prize winner and mathematician as he battled the debilitating effects of schizophrenia to eventually attain international acclaim . Schizophrenia , a mental dis characterized by an inability to perceive reality , affects roughly one percent of the human population . In the film , John Nash 's dis is depicted through a series of delusions that eventually leads to a

downward spiral which almost incapacitates Nash . It also showed the various treatments Nash had to undergo in his fight to overcome schizophrenia

Symptoms and Diagnosis

While schizophrenia is usually experienced by people in their adolescence , just as they are about to spread their wings ' - as Nasar said in the New York Times - Nash was struck when he had already begun to soar (Lautin , 2001 http /www .dailyprincetonian .com /archives /2001 /02 /27 /page3 . John Nash began to visibly exhibit the symptoms of schizophrenia in 1958 when he was approximately 30 years old . When Nash 's mental disturbances began he was working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his wife Alicia was pregnant with their son . During this time , he began having delusions - he believed that he could see encrypted messages in news articles , and often missed classes and lectures , so absorbed was he in his quest to decode the newss . Soon after , his delusions escalated and he began to think that he was being recruited into a secret code-breaking unit of the military . Once , he disrupted a lecture by announcing to his students that he would appear on the cover of a magazine masquerading as the pope . He also believed that spies were trying to reach him through the New York Times . He also refused an offer from the University of Chicago , believing that he was about to be appointed as the Emperor of Antarctica

theless , the film showed that throughout Nash 's stay at Princeton from 1945 to 1949 , he was already having delusions . While at Princeton he believed that he had a roommate , whereas records show that he had lived alone . He also believed in the existence of his roommate 's young niece , a little girl that sometimes accompanied his roommate

As a consequence of his growing schizophrenia , Nash was forced to resign from MIT , and was practically incapacitated for the following two decades . In 1959 , Nash began to become increasingly paranoid , forcing his wife to admit him into the McLean Hospital where he was treated with chlorpromazine injections . The McLean Hospital is a private psychiatric institution which employs treatments such as counseling , psychoanalysis and group and family therapy . There he was placed under observation for 50 days and was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and mild depression with low self-esteem (Wikipedia , 2006 http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /John_Forbes_Nash Schizophrenia

A Beautiful Mind portrayed John Nash 's dis as a succession of visual hallucinations : the roommate...