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
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
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