Essay Example on The film A Beautiful Mind depicts the life of Nobel Prize

Favour Aimufua Psychology The film A Beautiful Mind depicts the life of Nobel Prize winner John Nash It takes us on a journey that begins with him at Princeton University studying mathematics and trying to come up with an original idea for publication At Princeton University we then meet his roommate and best friend Charles Herman who seems to be the only person that understands and puts up with him After university he begins to work at MIT and years later gets invited to the Pentagon to decipher telecommunication codes While working at MIT we meet William Parcher from the United States Department of Defense who offers him a new exciting secretive assignment John Nash begins to work secretively as spy to help against Russian spies Around that time he also begins to date and eventually gets married to a student of his from MIT As the years go on he continues to work for Parcher but when finding out that he and his wife are expecting he asks to leave However after being blackmailed by Parcher he begins fearing for his life and that of his family John eventually gets sedated and put in a psychiatric center after giving a lecture at Harvard University The psychiatrist Dr Rosen tries to help him understand that what he thinks is real wasn't 

That the people we have all come to know are actually part of his delusions and hallucinations He gets diagnosed with schizophrenia and after getting treatment is able to leave as long as he stays medicated The rest of the film shows the struggle with him taking medication the stigma behind having this disorder how it impacted his family friends work options He eventually stops taking the medication and works at living with schizophrenia and trying to regain a sense of normality The DSM 5 criteria for schizophrenia is shown below Two or more of the following symptoms for at least 1 month one symptom should be either 1 2 or 3 1 delusions 2 hallucinations 3 disorganized speech 4 disorganized catatonic behavior 5 negative symptoms diminished motivation or emotional expression Functioning in work relationships or self care has declined since onset Signs of disorder for at least 6 months if during a prodromal or residual phase negative symptoms or two or more of symptoms 1 4 in less severe form And this categorical DSM 5 diagnostic system is helpful in understanding John Nash s personality and main difficulties Categorical classification does not show or consider the connection and continuance between the normal and abnormal behavior 

IN addition the film showed how the disorder disrupted his interpersonal relationships and diminished his capacity to work or live independently John was let go of his former job position after being diagnosed his family had to move to another location and basically restructure their life around His wife was not comfortable leaving his child alone with him and could be seen at time struggling with the idea of this new person he had become While watching the film it made me realize how devastating having schizophrenia could be John Nash was once a MIT professor consultant to the pentagon and after getting diagnosed it took a very long time before he could be able to work as a professor at Princeton Schizophrenia also changed the whole dynamic in his family and personal relationships To find out that the core people were not real the important and special memories that you shared were all lies and that people felt you were crazy and treated you differently would be really hard on anyone But I can only imagine what it felt like for someone who was a genius and developed the concept of governing dynamics to feel incapacitated and helpless In that moment it must have been very hard demeaning embarrassing and frustrating However to be able to refuse medication and keep trying to beat or live with the disorder took strong will and having an amazing support system I felt very inspired viewing his strength dedication and progress