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Music therapy and mental illness essay
Academic paper on how can musical therapy treat serious mental illnesses
Music therapy and mental illness
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Synopsis of the movie
The Soloist (Foster, Krasnoff & Wright, 2008), is based on a true story of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr. who develops psychosis and becomes homeless. In the film, Nathaniel is considered a cello genius who is discovered on the streets by Steve Lopez, a journalist from the Los Angeles Times. Steve was searching for a story and he decided to write a newspaper article about Nathaniel. Nathaniel always had a passion for music. He was a child prodigy and attended Juilliard School of Music. However, he faced many complications at Juilliard, particularly hearing voices speaking to him. Unable to handle the voices, Nathaniel dropped out and ended up living on the streets of Los Angeles. Steve and Nathaniel develops an unexpected
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According to the DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Schizophrenia, a diagnosis requires that two or more positive, negative, and/or disorganised symptoms be present for at least 1 month, with at least one of these symptoms including delusions, hallucinations, or disorganised speech (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Nathaniel suffers from mild positive symptoms of schizophrenia with paranoia and disorganised behaviours. This is evident in his auditory hallucinations of persecutory nature and delusions of persecution. In addition, positive symptoms typically involve the individual showing unusual behaviors, dressing peculiarly, and displaying disorganised behaviour (Gleitman, Gross & Reisberg, 2011). Nathaniel had odd attires like wearing a reflective vest, he is frenzy, ran haphazardly across roads, ignores personal hygiene, and at times acted violently. He also displays signs of disorganised speech with derailment and incoherence. The diagnosis also requires continuous signs of disturbance to persist for at least 6 months, in which must include at least 1 month of active-phase symptoms (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Nathaniel’s active-phase symptoms persisted for longer than 6 months, in which would be considered as a chronic …show more content…
The study of Gold, Heldal, Dahle and Wigram (2005) shows that, schizophrenic patients undergoing a sufficient amount of music therapy in active music making or music listening, were able to block out the auditory hallucinations and have more of a uniform conversation. Music deals with the cognitive approach with the brain concentrating on another thing so that patients can relax, function better and help them alleviate their symptoms (Gold, Heldal, Dahle & Wigram, 2005). With the addition of music therapy, Nathaniel symptoms will significantly subside, as Gold et al. (2005) found that even those that do not have a musical background or are musically inclined showed some progression with music
Schizophrenia has multiple symptoms; according to the World of Health Organization, these symptoms include “delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior [as well as depressive behavior].” Monomania
Schizophrenia is one of the most well known and surprisingly frequent psychological disorders today. Patients who have this disorder have problems separating reality from fantasy or delusion. Typically, the person with schizophrenia starts off with a small paranoia about something or someone and continues to get more and more problematic until he/she has trouble functioning in the real world because of emotional, physical, mental, or financial reasons. Because of this, most people who end up homeless have Schizophrenia because they are unable to keep a job, Nathaniel Ayes in the book The Soloist. Nathaniel was a cello player attending the Julliard school of music, one of the world’s most prestigious performing art schools, until he developed schizophrenia and was unable to continue. This book shows how much a disorder such as schizophrenia can turn a person’s life upside down in the course of as little as a few weeks.
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.
“HE’S GOT THE WORLD ON TWO STRINGS”(pg21). Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers go through a lot since Steve met Nathaniel a homeless man whole plays the violin in downtown Los Angeles. Nathaniel is a homeless man who has paranoid schizophrenia travels downtown Los Angeles pushing his cart with his violin in it. Steve is a writer works for the Los Angeles Times and is always looking for a story for he can write for his column. Both Nathaniel and Steve create a friendship even though with all the challenges but in the book The Soloist it shows how they created a friendship. Even though in The Soloist they talk about how mental illness is a choice, force medication to treat the illness, and the way people treat you.
In the film, Nathaniel was given a schizophrenia diagnosis. According to the DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Schizophrenia, a diagnosis requires that two or more positive, negative, and/or disorganised symptoms be present for at least 1 month, with at
What is Schizophrenia? Schizophrenia is brain disorder that makes it hard to see the difference between reality and imagination, have normal emotional responses, and act normal in social situations. Schizophrenia is relatively young, it has only been around for less than 100 years. It was first discovered by Dr. Emile Kraeplin in 1887. He believed it was a mental illness. A few documents take Schizophrenia’s origins back to Egypt during the Pharaoh’s rule around 1550 B.C. People originally thought schizophrenia was simply madness, and usually associated it with madness, even though it is quite different from madness. Symptoms of this disease include Positive symptoms, which are: hallucinations, or things that someone can see, feel, smell, or hear that do not really exist. Many people hear voices inside their heads, see people that are not there, or smell odors no one else smells. Delusions are another symptom, also known as bizarre beliefs, these may include paranoid delusions also, which are delusions that tell the person that others are trying to hurt them. Thought Disorders are a symptom in which the person thinks unusually or dysfunctionally. Movement disorders may be present in schizophrenic people, they may seem like twitches or small, sharp, and sudden movements. Schizophrenia’s “negative symptoms” are harder to recognize. These include the flat affect, in which the persons face doesn’t move and the voice is droning. The lack of pleasure in life is another once, along with the lack of ability to start and sustain activities, and little speech. These symptoms prevent or block the person from living a normal life because they cause social, physical, and emotional, and mental problems. This may lead to psychosis, insanity, or ...
Schizophrenia is a common disease; it is a serious disorder of the mind and bran but is actually very treatable it actually ranks in the top 10 causes of disability in developed countries worldwide. Schizophrenia is a completely brain based disorder, that causes hallucinations, and affects multiple brain functions, like the thinking clearly, managing how you feel, making decisions and how to relate to other people. People with schizophrenia also have to face illusions daily, which are very vivid false beliefs, which might cause them to think that people are following them or looking directly at them. Schizophrenia is a horrible disorder for the majority of people who face it, and very can also be enormously costly for families and even society in general. Even though it is treatable there is no current cure for schizophrenia the only thing now is that it must be managed through therapy. There are over fifteen modern medications for that could treat schizophrenia that were developed by different biotechnology and pharmaceutical businesses. The costs from schizophrenia was estimated to be in the range of $61.7 billion, and $22.6 billion direct health care costs in 2011. The most accepted theory of why people have schizophrenia is that it’s result of a simply genetics from the environmental exposures and stress during pregnancy or childhood are what generally causes the disorder to form. Researchers note several key strand genes that when damaged seem to create a pre problem or increase for the risk of schizophrenia. The genes, in mixture with known environmental exponentials are thought to be the reason that it is a result in schizophrenia. The genes that are projected to enhance the risk of obtaining schizophrenia are the Dysbin...
Music therapy works because of its three fundamentals: the application of systematic thinking through music theory, the creation of an individualized treatment plan, as well as the patie...
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
Music is everywhere we go; we listen to it in the car, while doing work, and there are even people who pay to listen or watch an artist perform live. Yes, life goes on without music, but music has such an impact on our lives. Life is a rollercoaster of emotions and we have music to fit our emotions to be just as we feel. Music has a great deal of importance of many people. It can have a meaning that they cannot explain to others and are able to connect with the song. By doing so experts are able to help patients overcome many sicknesses with the help of music. Music therapy is capable of being an advantage for many individual patients, it can encourage responses from patients that other methods of therapy cannot get from them. Also, it improves the patients in distinctive ways other than for an illness.
Schizophrenia is a disease that plagues many individuals today and though medications can help alleviate the symptoms there is no known cure for the illness. There are a multitude of representations of schizophrenia in the media. This paper will focus on A Beautiful Mind; a film that focuses on John Forbes Nash Jr. Nash was a mentally gifted individual. He attended Princeton and his mathematical work has changed society greatly. In the movie, Russell Crowe played John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. Throughout the movie Crowe did an amazing job depicting the multiple symptoms of schizophrenia. Within this paper I will focus on the positive symptoms, negative symptoms, positive hallucinations, effects of medication, and the time frame of the illness represented in the film.
Further signs of this disorder are shown particularly by auditory and perceptional disturbances, a lack of motivation for life, and clinical depression. “Brown University Didactic Readings: DSM-IV Schizophrenia (DSM-IV-TR# 295.1-295.3, 295.90)” (PDF). Brown University. Pp. 1-11 Retrieved June 1, 2015.
Grappling with Schizophrenia is scary and confusing. A certain relief may be experienced to learn the diagnostic label for this psychiatric illness. However, the moment is fleeting upon hearing there is no conventional medical cure for Schizophrenia.
In the film “ A Beautiful Mind” John Nash experiences a few different positive symptoms. The first of these positive symptoms are seen through the hallucinations John has of having a room -mate while at Princeton. This room- mate continues to stay “in contact” with John through out his adult life and later this room- mate’s niece enters Johns mind as another coinciding hallucination. Nash’s other hallucination is Ed Harris, who plays a government agent that seeks out Nash’s intelligence in the field of code- breaking.
Movie Analysis Writing Assignment A Beautiful Mind is an award-winning movie that is based on the life of John Nash. John Nash is an American mathematician who is known for his research and mathematical contributions at Princeton University. A Beautiful Mind not only highlights on Nash’s intellectual ability to create mathematical algorithms, but also the mental illness that he suffered from.