The Soloist Movie Analysis

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In the movie ‘The Soloist,’ Nathaniel experienced mostly positive symptoms. Ronald Comer, ‘Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, defines positive symptoms as “pathological excesses,” or bizarre additions, to a person’s behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and negative symptoms as a deficit of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Nathaniel Ayers displayed signs of an abundance of excessive thoughts, emotions, and behavior. One example was when he initially met Steve Lopez; Nathaniel was extremely verbose and illustrated symptoms of disorganized and rapid speech patterns. He later expressed deep emotions towards Steve, by revealing to him that he loved him. Nathaniel held the delusion that Steve Lopez was god and this belief dominated his life. There was a scene in the movie where Steve Lopez had received a donated cello for Nathaniel; he told Nathaniel that he would only be allowed to play it if he went to the LAMP community center. Against his own desire, Nathaniel complied and went to the community center in hopes of playing it again. Auditory hallucinations are said to be common in people with …show more content…

Out curiosity, he looked out the window and saw a car ablaze moving down the street. This experience describes what the textbook calls the active phase. The active phase is the most unpleasant and distressing of the 3 phases. It is when the symptoms become more noticeable. In most cases, this phase is triggered by stressful life events or trauma. As the crescendo of symptoms of schizophrenia mounted, the most debilitating and unbearable symptom manifested during his time at Julliard School of Performing Arts. He began to experience obsessive auditory hallucinations. This disrupted his ability to continue his education and resulted in his return home. Nathaniel schizophrenic symptoms worsened and he later left home with the misconception that he was not safe at

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