A Beautiful Mind Psychology

Film Analysis: A Beautiful Mind

I. Introduction

For this assignment, I choose to view A Beautiful Mind, which is a biography based on the true life story of a math prodigy, John Forbes Nash Jr. The movie is a brilliant and touching portrayal of the destruction of the mind by schizophrenia, paranoia, and the effect of ostracism. These psychological concepts and conditions are clearly shown by the main character, played by Russell Crowe. Two of the concepts extensively described in this paper are schizophrenia and the concept of paranoia.
II. Plot Review The movie is loosely based on the book of the same name and tells the story of John Forbes Nash Jr. At the beginning of the film, the character John Nash arrives as a new student at
Princeton University. He is introduced to his imaginary roommate Charles, who would later become his best friend, as well as a group of male students who hang out together. The first part of the film shows Nash's intellectual concepts and his social deficiencies. In college Nash begins to work on the concept of governing dynamics. During the entire first part of the film, Nash does not know that his roommate and best friend, his friend's young niece and a mysterious Department of Defense agent are all hallucinations and are part of a psychotic ailment known as schizophrenia. After the conclusion of Nash's studies as a student at Princeton, the agent encourages Nash to look for patterns in magazines and newspapers, accordingly to stop a
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Soviet plot. Consequently, Nash begins to have increasingly paranoid delusions that lead him to behave erratically. A fellow co-worker of Nash reports his behavior to the authorities; as a result he is forcibly sedated he is sent to a psychiatric facility. Nash is then confronted with the truth of his schizophrenia. Initially this situation feeds his paranoia that the Soviets were trying to extract information from him, but his wife is able to show him the unopened "top secret" documents, which convinces him that he has been hallucinating. Nash is released on the condition of agreeing to take antipsychotic medication. However, these drugs create terrible side-effects on his personality, his relationship with his wife, and his intellect. Nash stops taking his medication, triggering a relapse of his schizophrenia. After a dangerous situation occurs between his wife and child Nash finally realizes these people are not "real" and he has been imaging them the whole time. He then fully accepts that all three of them are, in fact, part of his psychosis. Caught between having to choose the intellectual paralysis of the antipsychotic drugs or the haunting of his disease, Nash and his wife decide to try to live with his schizophrenia. Nash begins to try to ignore his hallucinations and therefore not feed the thoughts. The rest of the movie depicts Nash growing older while working on his studies in the library of Princeton University. He still suffers hallucinations and periodically has to check if new people he meets are real, but ultimately he develops the ability to live with and largely ignore his mental problems. Eventually, Nash begins to teach at the university and is honored by his fellow professors for his lifetime achievement. Nash goes on to be awarded Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on game theory.(IMDB)
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III. Psychological Concept

-Schizophrenia- Nash suffered from the mental illness, known as Schizophrenia, almost all his life. Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness and is one of the most serious of the chronic, persistent mental illnesses. It affects one percent of the world's population, and strikes people of every race, every economic group and is found in a whole range of mental abilities. People with this illness have disturbed and disorganized thinking, language, and behavior. They may see, hear, or feel things that aren't really there. Sometimes the speech of a person with schizophrenia makes no sense because they are having unusual thoughts, such as believing that they are God. Schizophrenia usually causes serious problems in day-to-day living and creates false delusions and beliefs. The term schizophrenia means "split mind." Those who have it seem to have normal mental function in some areas but are very disturbed in others. For example, a person may talk in bizarre ways but be able to do math, such as Nash and his abilities. The symptoms of schizophrenia include constant, complex and compelling delusions. Some delusions are extravagant and seem very realistic. Sometimes they are persecutory and the person believes that others are plotting against him. Some delusions are referential, as in John Nash's case where he believed that newspaper passages were sending him secret messages, that certain numbers held mystical meanings. Schizophrenia brings hyper awareness, sensory excess, and a strange wakefulness; it creates a false perception on life. People with schizophrenia tend to withdraw and to lack

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motivation and energy, which are called negative symptoms of the illness. Disruptive behavior, hearing voices, and having delusional thoughts are positive symptoms. Often the affected person hears berating, terrifying voices.
They may order the person to commit violence or feel guilt. The voices are a constant frightening conversation of sound interfering with outside reality. Visual hallucinations also may occur; people's faces can shift and change and frightening and bizarre visions are seen. At times, the world appears to be a dangerous and threatening place that is out of the control of the affected person. Many people with the illness become so afraid to venture outside that they are prisoners in their homes. Others wander the streets shouting their delusions out loud. Many homeless people suffer from schizophrenia, due to their condition and amount of stress. Schizophrenia is a biologically based illness. It is not caused by bad parenting, stressful situations or lack of will power. However, stress may trigger an attack in a genetically pre-disposed person. Some scientists believe that something might happen before birth, such as a viral infection in the womb that causes schizophrenia decades later.
Special scans, such as PET (positron-emission tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), have been used to look at the brains of people with this illness. Lab studies have shown that nerve cells in some parts of the brains of schizophrenics may be misaligned or damaged. (Psychological Studies) -Treatment of
Schizophrenia- The important question of ‘how do we treat this disorder?' has been answered as early as the 1950's when the first form of medication came out, although meeting with
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some side effects. Antipsychotic drugs, like virtually all medications, have unwanted side effects. As in the movie when Nash received the medicine, he did function with the same intellectual awareness. Different patients have different treatment responses and side effects to various antipsychotic drugs. A patient may do better with one drug than another. However, where one person could be aided by a specific drug, the same drug may not work on someone else who has the same symptoms. This is why treating schizophrenia has met with such problems. Where as the older drugs reduced dopamine by completely blocking receptors on mesolimbic cells, this blocking led to impaired movement and awareness (Newsweek p. 48), the new drugs ‘bind less strongly to the receptors, blocking just enough dopamine to ease symptoms in the mesolimbic pathway without causing shortages elsewhere (Newsweek p.47). Schizophrenia changes the way one relates to others and the way they think about everyday activities. Therefore, sick patients will probably need a therapist or case manager to help manage their daily needs. They may live in a group setting with others who also have this illness. It may be necessary to spend some time in a hospital if they are thinking about hurting themselves or someone else.
IV. Schizophrenia in A Beautiful Mind The movie A Beautiful Mind creates an opportunity to see the effect of mental illnesses and how it can be overcome. The movie shows first hand the problems schizophrenia may cause, such as John seeing fictional characters such as the agent and his long time friend Charles. Its most effective element is the showing and realism of the delusions of John Nash's mind; they are so real that it's to the point where the viewer
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cannot know what hallucination is and what reality is. This is the closest any healthy person can come to understanding the misunderstanding and panic that come when the mind is out of control. Sanity and safety and all the basics we depend upon and for John they are suddenly gone. The saddest thing about John's story is that people we love become strangers. He longer could trust his wife because she couldn't relate to his problems. For the first time we get an understanding of the amazing courage people with mental illness need to face these terrors every day and what a struggle it is for them simply to survive. Finally, the movie does not leave us without hope.
John Nash was able to live through the years of his sickness, and in an almost unbelievable way come out on the other side. Not all people with mental illnesses are fortunate to have such recoveries. This is why it would have been a little more interesting seeing his progression as he gets older. Slowly over a period of years his delusions lessened. It is very hard for most patients to overcome this sickness without the proper medicine but it is possible. He now lives a quiet life with his wife Alicia in Cambridge, N.J. They are concerned with caring for their only son, Johnny, who also was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I thought that this was interesting due to the fact that schizophrenia is not known for being passed on by the
parents. Due to the fact that this movie was based on a true story, I believe it was a good perception of the sickness known as schizophrenia. It was a very eerie feeling not knowing if something was real or fake. That is what John and other sufferers go through with their whole life. A Beautiful Mind p.7

-Paranoia- The term paranoia is used to describe a condition where a delusion is present, but without any apparent deterioration in intellectual abilities and without any of the other features of the brain, the condition relates a lot to schizophrenia. Although the diagnosis of paranoia is no longer used (having been replaced by the diagnosis of delusional disorder) the use of the term to signify the presence of delusions in general lives on in the classification of paranoid schizophrenia, which denotes a form of schizophrenia where delusions are familiar. More recently, the clinical use of the term has been used to describe delusions where the affected person believes they are being persecuted. Specifically, they have been defined as containing two central elements. The individual thinks that harm is occurring, or is going to occur, to him or her and that the individual thinks that the persecutor has the intention to cause harm. Paranoia is often associated with psychotic illnesses, particularly schizophrenia, although attenuated features may be present in other primarily non-psychotic diagnoses, such as paranoid personality disorder. In the unrestricted use of the term, common paranoid delusions can include the belief that the person is being followed, poisoned or watched at a distance. Other common paranoid delusions include the belief that the person has an imaginary sickness or parasitic infection; that the person is on a special quest or has been chosen by God; that the person has had thoughts inserted or removed from conscious thought; or that the person's actions are being controlled by an external force. A Beautiful Mind p.8 - Paranoia in A Beautiful Mind In the movie Nash is constantly suffering from paranoia due to his schizophrenia. He believes that he is being watched by the Soviets who after his brilliant mind. Even though these beliefs are false he can't shake the feeling of being watched or followed. His paranoia leads to him acting as if he is always on edge and constantly concerned with the situation. He can't function normally and concentrate on the important matters such as his family and work. He is fixated with his paranoia and the images created by schizophrenia. The movie does show a truthful perception of the illness known as paranoia. The power of his paranoia almost ruined his life and it was clearly displayed in the movie. Paranoia can affect all kinds of people and Nash was no exception. It usually occurs more with people who have a reason to be suspicious of others. Nash's theories were very important and this may have caused him to mistrust others and create a false perception. Overall I thought the movie gave a accurate description of the movie.
V. Conclusion A Beautiful Mind gave a very descriptive and intellectual view on the affects of a mental illness. Through examples and situations it helped show circumstances that people must suffer with if they have schizophrenia or paranoia. A sense of hope was shown because Nash overcame his illness and with help many others can attain this outcome. A Beautiful Mind gave a better understanding of the struggle between reality and a world created by illness of the mind, even a brilliant mind like Nash's. Reference
1) Alder, J. (1999, July 21). Schizophrenia in Society. Newsweek, 47-48
2) (2001). Movie Review: A Beautiful Mind. www.imdb.com/reveiws/abeautifulmind
3) Gazzaniga S. Michael (2003) Psychological Science, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.