Nash's Paranoid Schizophrenia In 'A Beautiful Mind'

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The movie “A beautiful Mind” directed by Ron Howard, is a story about the genius mathematician John Forbes Nash who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Paranoid schizophrenia is a subtype of schizophrenia where the patients experiences auditory hallucinations or delusional thoughts where they think that people are plotting against them (Bengston, 2013). The movie is based on the true life story of John Nash who is played by Russel Crowe. In the beginning, Nash works as a graduate mathematician student at Princeton University. Although Nash appears to be arrogant as well as socially awkward, he was also very intelligent and his fellow peers and teachers new this. Nash spent most of his time trying to figure out an revolutionary equation for maths. It is not until mid way through the movie that the audience discovers that most of the places and situations that occurs are just mere hallucinations of Nash's…show more content…
What this actually means is that patients of schizophrenia are split off from reality. There is a split in personality, thinking, memory, and perception (Taylor, 2011). They have trouble distinguishing between what is real and what is not. During the movie, Nash suffered from severe hallucinations and delusions. According to DSM-IV, diagnosis for schizophrenia are: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, and negative symptoms such as affective flattening and avolition (DNALC, n.d). There are two types of symptoms in schizophrenic patients; negative or positive. Positive symptoms, also known as psychotic symptoms, refers to hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech. On the other hand, negative symptoms refers to emotional flatness, lack of content in speech, inability to experience pleasure, and inability to start or follow through with activities (NAMI,
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