Schizophrenia In A Beautiful Mind

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“A Beautiful Mind” John Nash, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics for his groundbreaking work on game theory suffered from schizophrenia. The biographical movie “A Beautiful Mind”, illustrates the life of Nash and the experiences he encounter as well as how schizophrenia manipulated his life. Nash embodied positive symptoms from schizophrenia such as heightened hallucinations and perceptions, delusions, and disorganized thinking and speech. However Nash also displays an example of social withdrawal. He presented himself as psychologically abnormal. Nash displays deviant behavior when he begins to recuperate from a relapse. He was granted permission to work out of the library at Princeton University. In a scene he was confronted by a hallucination…show more content…
The DSM-5 diagnosis states that a person who suffers from schizophrenia should display one of the following symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and or disorganized speech for at least a one-month period alongside with grossly abnormal psychomotor behavior, including catatonia, and negative symptoms (Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, Ronald J. Comer 2014). Schizophrenic individuals should also show a decline in functioning in school, work, interpersonal relations or self-care (Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, Ronald J. Comer 2014). These symptoms should be present for at least six months. In the case of Nash, he displayed delusions, hallucinations, and a decline in his social relationships as well as work. Nash has delusions of persecution, an example is after the shootout that he was involved with, he seemed extremely paranoid. He begins to avoid his wife and any social environment. A specific incident is when he was looking outside the window from his classroom at MIT and he thought he saw detectives but in reality it was just a family. Another example is when Nash was already hospitalized and his wife visited him. He encouraged her to talk slowly because there might be microphones listening. Nash believed profoundly that he was being threatened and victimized by the Russians (people who were shooting at him). Nash experienced heightened visual hallucinations. An example of this is Charles his…show more content…
A biological perspective might suggest that schizophrenia is inherited. This genetic factor suggest that a person will inherit a biological predisposition to schizophrenia (Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, Ronald J. Comer 2014). Usually a stressor will trigger it. In Nash’s case, the extreme pressure to publish his findings may have been a pinpointing moment. Genetic linkage also suggest that biochemical abnormalities and abnormal brain structure can be inherited. However abnormal brain structure is more compatible with negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The biological perspective also highlights that a possible cause for schizophrenia and for Nash is that maybe the individual was exposed to viruses when they were in the fetus. This exposure can cause an interruption of the brain development. Lastly this perspective also expresses how hallucinations and related perceptual difficulties are actually being produced by the brain. (Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, Ronald J. Comer 2014). A cognitive perspective explains schizophrenia similarly to the biological perspective. They both agree that the brain is actually producing the hallucinations. Also this perspective suggest that schizophrenic individuals are taking a “rational path to madness” (Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, Ronald J. Comer 2014). Meaning that they try to understand their hallucinations and in doing so resort to family or close friends and
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