A Beautiful MindFrom a psychological perspective on

schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia Overview Schizophrenia is a

psychological disorder with symptoms of delusions, hearing voices, lack of emotions or motivation, and/or disorganized thinking.

There are five subtypes of schizophrenia such as paranoid, catatonic, disorganized, undifferentiated, and residual.

There are some treatments for the disorder but it only helps a small percentage of those who have schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia Subtypes Paranoid schizophrenia is symptoms of delusions of

grandeur, and hallucinations. Catatonic schizophrenia has symptoms of no body

movement or the person has rapid, excited movements.

Disorganized schizophrenia is where a person’s speech is disorganized, and they can also have inappropriate emotions.

Undifferentiated schizophrenia is a person who can have a varied amount of symptoms from other subtypes such as lack of movement with inappropriate emotions.

Residual schizophrenia is somebody who has very mild symptoms, and the disorder gets fixed over time with medication.

Schizophrenia Treatments There are two types of treatments for

schizophrenia.• Electroconvulsive therapy where the patient

gets shocked. It was popular in the 1950’s, and was later found to have no effect on patients.

• Antipsychotic drugs such as chlorpromazine, haldol, prolixin, and navane help the symptoms but have side effects such as tremors and impaired coordination.

Movie Overview A Beautiful Mind is about a mathematician genius named John

Nash (played by Russell Crowe) who doesn’t have the best social skills but wants to be recognized by others for his genius. As the movie progresses, he finds himself helping a government official named Parcher with cracking Russian codes inside Times magazines to prevent them from attacking the U.S. He eventually gets paranoid that the Russians will find out that he’s a spy, and kill him but he can’t tell his wife because the work is classified.

The Real Truth Behind the Story Eventually, as the viewer, we find out that

there was no such conspiracy but that it was all in his head. John Nash has been suffering from schizophrenia. His wife, Alicia takes him to a psychiatrist (whom he believes is a Russian) to help him with his problem. After having electroconvulsive therapy 5 times a week for 10 weeks, and taking medication, the delusions went away but his brain couldn’t think right, and he wasn’t able to solve the math problems like he use to. You see John Nash who is there physically but isn’t quite all there mentally. He decides to stop taking his medication, and fight the schizophrenia on his own. He eventually is able to overcome his delusions, and live a happy life at the college with teaching students, and ends up winning the Nobel Prize.

Psychological Connections When watching the movie more than once, you begin to pick up on when

the disorder starts taking hold on his reality. When he is in college, the delusion of his college room mate was a reflection of a true friend that he wanted, and who was harmless to him but once the schizophrenia took hold, and his obsession for receiving recognition began, is when the government conspiracy began, and he became very paranoid, and very irrational. The idea of him being a U.S. spy to crack codes for Parcher was all a delusion. There was one point in the movie where his delusions really took hold of him that he accidentally knocked his wife down while holding the baby to prevent her from calling the psychiatrist, and gave into his delusion that she was calling the Russians. He would be classified as a paranoid schizophrenic due to the illusions of grandeur, and the hallucinations he had.

Accurate Depiction of Schizophrenia?

John’s hallucination of Parcher the government spy leader• Verdict: True

John was sent on an adventure full of paranoia, and “danger” being done to him. At one point in the film, he is shown cutting into his own arm to find the serial number that represented he was a spy for the government to prove that it wasn’t all just in his head but he couldn’t find it because it truly was in his head.

Accurate Depiction of Schizophrenia?

His treatments of electroconvulsive therapy, and medication.• Verdict: True

When he was undergoing electroconvulsive therapy it took place in 1954 which was a year when the therapy was very popular, and believed it helped the disorder. Recent studies have shown that it does absolutely nothing for the patients but rather that it helps those with severe depression.

The small, pink, circular pill depicted in the film that he uses is chlorpromazine which was created by a French scientist, and introduced mainstream in the U.S. in 1954 as a medication for schizophrenia.

Personal Connection This is one of my favorite movies because I can connect so well to it. I

don’t have schizophrenia but I have been diagnosed with a different psychological disorder. I was on medication to help with my condition like John Nash in the movie but the medication made me feel spaced out, and I just felt like I was going through the motions like he was when he was on his medication. Like him, I decided to fight it on my own. Having the support of family, and friends around me, I’ve overcome it, and improved just like he did with his wife supporting him, and his old college colleagues he works with. It just goes to show that if you put your mind to, you can overcome it. It truly is “A Beautiful Mind”.

References Wikipedia

• http://www.wikipedia.org For information regarding medications, and

information on schizophrenia.