Summary Of A Beautiful Mind

Movie: A Beautiful Mind directed by Ron Howard

Character with mental illness: John Nash

Diagnosis: Schizophrenia (Paranoid)

Diagnostic Criteria:

A. Characteristic Symptoms:

1. Delusions -- Thinking you are in danger or trapped in a situation

2. Grossly disorganized behavior-- lack of self care or easily agitated without being provoked

3. Hallucinations -- seeing or hearing voices or things that are not real

4. Disorganized speech -- hard to understand or bounces off topic randomly

5. Catatonic behavior -- If sitting/standing/laying a position they will not let you move them

6. Negative Symptoms:

Flat Affect-- showing no emotion; lethargic (no energy)

Alogia -- Having nothing to say at loss with words

Avolition-- Cannot perform any daily

Nash was a student attending Princeton where he struggled to be attentive in class, because his only concerns were with creating formulas and equations. When Nash finally graduated he took on a teaching position at MIT, better known as Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As the film goes on, Nash is welcomed to the Pentagon by William Parcher, an agent that is only a figure of hallucination as we find out later. He has been called upon to decipher difficult government codes; leading to him becoming a secret spy. While at MIT, Nash has an encounter with a fellow student named Alicia that he later goes on to marry. After a while, Alicia begins to notice John’s erratic behaviors and calls in help from psychiatrist, Dr. Rosen. Through observation, Dr. Rosen tells Alicia that he believes John is showing signs of paranoid schizophrenia. Throughout the movie Nash starts to cook up imaginations of Charles, Marcy, and Parcher. As he kept having increasing bouts of disorganized behavior, hallucinations, and delusions, Nash was put on insulin shock therapy with antipsychotic drugs to treat his illness. In private, John withdrew himself from taking these medications and soon began to repeat the strange behaviors from before. Then with his wife Alicia’s help they found new ways to cope with his disease other than

The first hallucinations he has are visual meaning he things he sees people and he really doesn’t. The first hallucination he has is of Charles, his “roommate” and the only person that will listen to him and be there anytime he needs a friend. The reason for this is likely that at this moment in time he did not have many friends and he almost created his own imaginary ones for when he felt alone; he liked the comfort. Next, Nash see William Parcher the agent that he goes to crack codes for and believes he was meant to be a spy. Throughout his missions with William he sees things like army camps, labs, spies, and soldiers with guns. In this sense he is finally getting a sense of how it is to have a career, because his illness can hold him back; he felt important. His last hallucination was when he saw Charles’ niece, Marcy. She is a genuine and sweet person to talk to so he associated that with the desire of emotions as she was “there” when he wanted to marry his wife. However, when he realized Marcy doesn’t age any, he begins to notice she is not