Analysis Of A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind, released in 2001, is a biographical movie that depicts the extraordinary life of John Nash. The film begins as John Nash is entering graduate school at Princeton University as a mathematician with his eccentric roommate, Charles Herman. Nash’s socially awkward personality is seen as he struggles to communicate with other people and dedicates the majority of his time trying to find a novel mathematical idea that will distinguish him from others. Nash is able to distinguish himself and get the position at Wheeler Defense Labs with his profound economics plan; however, he is enlisted by the government under William Parcher to decode secret messages in American newspapers to uncover a Russian conspiracy of bombing the U.S. Nash’s

The film also addresses the treatment of schizophrenia through John Nash’s experiences. Nash most likely took antipsychotic drugs, which reduce the symptoms of psychosis (a disconnection with reality and the inability to differentiate reality and subjective experience) like hallucinations and delusions (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2014). Hallucinations are perceptual experiences that are fake, and delusions are beliefs that seems real to the individual but do not exist in

The film also reflects the medical advancements that we have today, as seen in the article, of the development of the treatment of schizophrenia. In the research article, which was published in 2013, the subjects selected were prescribed oral antipsychotic drugs. The article also mentions the use of injectable antipsychotic drugs; however, these patients were not used in the study because the MEMS cap could not record medication usage on a syringe. In the film, Nash’s first treatment took place in 1954 and consisted of insulin comma therapy (ICT) for two weeks. ICT was used on schizophrenic patients primarily before the use of antipsychotic drugs. In ICT, insulin is injected in order to lower blood sugar levels, which makes the brain unconscious and repress psychotic thoughts (Fink & Karliner). Nash later switches to antipsychotic drugs, which were the bright pink pills he was ingesting in the film. Nash’s modification of treatment may be attributed to the increasing development and use of antipsychotic drugs at the time instead of ICT. This shows the transition from methods like ICT to more modern treatments as seen in the article of antipsychotic