The film, “A Beautiful Mind,” begins with an eccentric John Nash arriving at Princeton University. It is there that Nash meets his life-long friend Charles Herman. While at Princeton, Nash has the desire to publish his own original idea (Howard, A Beautiful Mind). After many days and nights struggling with this task, he is finally able to create his idea by a night of discussing with his fellow students on how to approach a group of young women in a bar. With his new concept of governing dynamics, he is offered an appointment at MIT with Sol and Bender, who remain Nash’s lifelong friends (Howard, A Beautiful Mind). After being at MIT for some years, Nash is unexpectedly invited to the Pentagon to crack enemy codes. When Nash is able to …show more content…
Psychological disorders can affect the individual, their families, and friends. One of the most important factors when dealing with such type of disorders is recognizing signs and symptoms. The person that has the disorder can express their symptoms and the people around the individual can recognize the signs. As for John Nash suffering from the psychological disorder paranoid schizophrenia, the signs were recognized by his wife. The common signs of paranoid schizophrenia are auditory disturbances, unexplained anger, emotional disconnectedness, severe anxiety and agitation, argumentative behavior, violent tendencies, delusions of grandeur- self-importance and believing he or she possesses special powers, and frequent suicidal thoughts and behaviors (Gluck, What is Paranoid Schizophrenia?). Paranoid delusions and auditory disturbances set apart paranoid schizophrenia and other sub-types of schizophrenia (Gluck, What is Paranoid Schizophrenia?). In paranoid schizophrenia the unreasonable delusions has the person feeling that others are conspiring against them. Auditory hallucinations makes the person hear voices that no one else can hear (Gluck, What is Paranoid Schizophrenia?). John Nash experienced both of these symptoms and his wife noticed his behavior, which resulted in her contacting a psychiatrist to get John the help he …show more content…
The treatment of paranoid schizophrenia involves a lifelong commitment, no cure for schizophrenia exists. Treatment varies based on symptom intensity and severity, patient medical history, age, and other individually relevant factors (Gluck, What is Paranoid Schizophrenia?). Treatments for paranoid schizophrenia require a team of medical and mental health professionals and social workers. Treatment may include antipsychotic medications, psychotherapy for patient and family, hospitalization, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and social skills development training (Gluck, What is Paranoid Schizophrenia?). In order for psychotherapeutic and other non-pharmaceutical interventions to work, doctors must first control paranoid schizophrenia symptoms. They do this by prescribing one or more antipsychotic drugs. The patient must comply with the doctor’s orders by closely adhering to dosing instructions and schedule in order for the drugs to work effectively (Gluck, What is Paranoid Schizophrenia?). Non-compliance can result in the person’s psychosis returning. In the movie John Nash receives shock therapy then oral medication in which he stops taking the medication and his psychosis
The protagonist in the motion picture Good Will Hunting is called Will, and he is described to be a high intellect person but with recluse tendencies whereby he has kept to himself mostly having only a few friends near him. The young adult is employed as a janitor in the university where can work out a difficult question presented to the students by the professor. The problem appears to be quite difficult for the students, but he does not struggle. The teacher takes an interest in the young man and stands for him in court and takes responsible for him. He takes him to therapy to treat his psychological disorder which becomes apparent with the actions and words that he utters in the film. Will is tough in the therapy sessions until he later
According to the DSM-IV, schizophrenia is classified under the section of “Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders”. Schizophrenia is one of the most serious major chronic brain disorders in the field of mental health; it is a neurological disorder that affects the cognitive functions of the human brain. People living with this incapacitating illness can experience multiple symptoms that will cause extreme strain in their own and their families and friends life. The individual can lose reality, unable to work, have delusions and hallucinations, may have disorganized speech and thought processes, will withdraw from people and activities, they may become suspicious and paranoid, may behave inappropriately in every day social situations. They may neglect personal hygiene and dress improperly, use excessive make-up; every day life is becoming chaotic for everyone involved.
This film shows schizophrenia as a challenging, yet, beatable disease. It shows the very hard aspects of it, but also the glory in the triumph over it. For the most part Russell Crowe delivered a pretty true portrayal of a schizophrenic’s life. Some parts were very “Hollywood”, while most aspects of the film were dead on with the nature of the sickness. A Beautiful Mind is a film that shows the very beautiful effects of unbridled love and support to someone who is afflicted by schizophrenia.
According to Gamble and Brennan (2000), the effectiveness of medication for schizophrenia to relieve patients from psychotic symptoms is limited. Although patients have adequate medication, some received little or no benefit from it and almost half of them still experience psychotic symptoms. They are also more likely to suffer relapse (Gamble and Brennan, 2000). Furthermore, Valmaggia, et al. (2005) found that 50% of patients who fully adhere to anti-psychotic medication regimes still have ongoing positi...
Classical antipsychotic treatments are commonly used to treat schizophrenic patients with major positive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as Thorazine, Haldol, and Stelazine (Gleitman et al., 2011). Antipsychotic treatments are usually administered with a variety of psychosocial treatments including social skills training, vocational rehabilitation, supported employment, family therapy, or individual therapy (Barlow & Durand, 2014). This is to reduce relapse and help the patient improve their skills in deficits and comply in consuming the
According the fourth edition diagnostic manual of mental disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), the category psychotic disorders (Psychosis) include Schizophrenia, paranoid (Delusional), disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, residual type. Other clinical types include Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar Affective Disorder/Manic depression, mania, Psychotic depression, delusional (paranoid) disorders. These are mental disorders in which the thoughts, affective response or ability to recognize reality, and ability to communicate and relate to others are sufficiently impaired to interfere grossly with the capacity to deal with reality; the classical and general characteristics of psychosis are impaired reality testing, hallucinations, delusions, and illusions. Mostly, these are used as defining features of psychosis even if there are other psychotic symptoms that characterise these disorders (L. Bortolotti, 2009).
The type of emotional disturbance John Nash experiences is paranoid schizophrenia. Some hallucination John Nash had was his imaginary roommate Charles Herman and Marcee. He had trouble distinguishing what was real and when he thought he was a spy hiding from the Russian. He had problems communicating with others.
Schizophrenia requires a lifetime of treatment through either medications and therapy, in many cases both is needed. Psychiatrist’s help patients survive through the disease. Another form to treat schizophrenia is through antipsychotic medications which are most commonly prescribed drugs to treat schizophrenia.
The movie A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard, tells the story of Nobel Prize winner, and mathematician, John Nash’s struggle with schizophrenia. The audience is taken through Nash’s life from the moment his hallucinations started to the moment they became out of control. He was forced to learn to live with his illness and learn to control it with the help of Alicia. Throughout the movie the audience learns Nash’s roommate Charles is just a hallucination, and then we learn that most of what the audience has seen from Nash’s perspective is just a hallucination. Nash had a way of working with numbers and he never let his disease get in the way of him doing math. Throughout the movie the audience is shown how impactful and inspirational John Nash was on many people even though he had a huge obstacle to overcome.
One common symptom is delusions, which are false beliefs that the person holds and that tend to remain fixed and unshakable even in the face of evidence that disproves the delusions (Cicarelli, p. 557). Other common symptoms include speech disturbances, in which people with schizophrenia make up words, repeat words or sentences persistently, string words together on the basis of sounds, and experience sudden interruptions in speech or thought. The thought patterns of those with schizophrenia are also significantly disturbed, as they have difficulty linking their thoughts together in logical ways (Cicarelli, p. 557). Individuals with schizophrenia may also experience hallucinations, in which they hear voices or see things or people who are not really there. Hearing voices and emotional disturbances are key symptoms in making a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Millions of people make up humanity, coloring the world with their unique personalities, and while they are sometimes labeled as eccentric or even strange, no one goes beyond the surface to see what makes them who they are. What if the people seen every day as professors, students, or geniuses, become someone else? What if their reality is no longer the one shared amongst others in the world?
In the movie, Silver Linings Playbook, it all started with a man named Pat Solitano who had a mental disorder. He was recently released from a psychiatric hospital and now resides with his parents. He had lost his wife and his job and life just was not happening in his favor. His aim was to win back his wife, which happened to be quite difficult in his case. That is until he met this widowed woman named Tiffany Maxwell, who promised to help him reach out to his wife if he returned a favor and danced with her in a competition. Pat wrote letters to his wife and in turn Tiffany delivered them. We later find out that Tiffany was the one all along writing back to Pat and that she had fallen in love with him. Directly following the dance competition,
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) is a multiaxial classification system for mental disorders. The first axis includes an extensive list of clinical syndromes that typically cause significant impairment. In the case of John Nash, his Axis I diagnosis would be paranoid schizophrenia. According to the text, “people with paranoid type schizophrenia have an organized system of delusions and auditory hallucinations that may guide their lives” (Comer, 2011, p. 364). Nash suffered delusions of persecution, fearing that people were out to get him.
As portrayed in A Beautiful Mind, John Nash is clearly suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia, although a case could possibly be made for a secondary diagnosis of OCD. His condition is clearly displayed through a pattern of behavior and symptoms including: distorted perceptions of reality, social withdrawal, paranoia, hallucinations, self-inflicted harm and general irrational behavior. He imagines 3 specific individuals throughout the movie, who accompany him throughout the remainder of his life. He avoids social situations, and when faced with them, has a difficult time relating to others, such as approaching a woman in a bar and forwardly asking to skip the usual pleasantries and go straight to sex. Unsurprisingly, this approach fails to achieve his goal. Paranoia is also on display on several occasions, seeing people watching him, believing himself to be spied upon, seeing shadowy figures outside his home. He also believed that an object had been implanted into his arm, prompting him to tear his skin apart in order to remove the object, which was never there to begin with.
A Beautiful Mind tells the true story of Professor John Nash (Russell Crowe), but, while the gross facts may be accurate, one must expect embellishment of the details. It first shows Nash as a student at Princeton in 1947. He is brilliant but erratic - a mathematical genius who lacks social skills. He is aided in making it through those difficult years by his roommate, Charles. Years later, following an astounding breakthrough that revolutionizes economics, John is teaching at M.I.T. and doing code-breaking work for a shady government agent, William Parcher (Ed Harris). It's at this time that John meets, falls in love with, and marries Alicia (Jennifer Connelly). But his happy world soon starts to crumble.