A Beautiful Mind: The Case of John Nash Essay

John Nash was a Princeton University graduate student that begins to loose touch with reality. The movie begins with John’s days in college as a bright mathematical student focusing on creating a thesis. Upon this journey he is he develops schizophrenia and it begins to worsen. He is able to acquire a job at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is here where he meets his future wife Alicia. Alicia is not aware of John’s condition at the time but soon learns. John is admitted into treatment for help and is eventually released. He then continues his life, partially recovering from the disease and is honored the Nobel Memorial Prize. John Nash is a young college student in his adult years. He is in his mid to late twenties he begins to develop schizophrenia. Information about immediate was not given, though he later marries his student, a MIT graduate student, Alicia Larde and has a son. As John ages his symptoms begin to worsen. He starts off by hearing voices and then eventually progresses to hallucinations and delusions. He often created friends and event scene by actions in his head that he believed was happening. According to the DSM, Schizophrenia is a mental illness of the mind. Its sub-types include paranoid, catatonic, hebephrenic and simple. Symptoms of schizophrenia include hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and bizarre behavior. Patients also commonly hear voices. Though the voices may vary there are many categories. They can comment on present actions and well as previous thoughts. Another feature is a â€Å"command hallucination† which can tell the patient what to do. In these scenarios the patient must obey the voice. While in college John Nash began to hear voices. He then begins creates friends of them. Those included Charles, whom he believed was his roommate and William Parcher an agent for the United States Department of Defense. Charles would be an example of a voice (or person) that comments of present actions, and Parcher is a command voice because he displays authority and directs John on what to do. While teaching at MIT, John believes he is on a mission to solve Soviet codes to assist the United States in stopping Soviet plots. While giving a lecture he believes Soviet spies captured him. He also endured in incident where he left this young son in the bathtub while running water. He claims he has a friend that was going to turn the water off. He almost drowns his son. These occurrences clearly identify John as a schizophrenic. He displays the symptoms needed to be considered a schizophrenic. There are no specific causes of schizophrenia. However schizophrenia can be affected by genetics and environmental causes. Medically a cause of schizophrenia is higher levels of dopamine receptors in the brain. There are also abnormal behaviors that occur in the frontal cortex, amygdala, and thalamus. Younger patients with this disease tend to lose me brain tissue compared to those that do not have the disease. Another factor that could potentially lead to the development of schizophrenia is the contraction of any viral infection of the mother while the fetus is still inside of her. Improper nutrition and a lack of oxygen to the brain while in the fetus state can play a part in leading to this disease. Other factors may include the birth month (winter v. summer), the birth place- rural areas compared to urban areas, maternal depression, as well as family history. Though the movie did not give information about John’s childhood nor family history, his schizophrenia could have possible developed from many of the factors previously mentioned. Schizophrenia is a disease that cannot be fully cured but can be treated. When a patient is treated for schizophrenia it is not removed from their brain but the symptoms associated with the disease are treated. For example a patient may still have schizophrenia but the common everyday signs such as hallucinations or delusions may be cured for an amount of time. In the film, John was admitted to a mental facility in which he was treated. He left on medication that treated his delusions. However once he decided to discontinue his medications the symptoms reappeared. He was then treated with insulin shock therapy. During this therapy patients are treated with insulin for about eight days to two weeks. Observations have recorded that it speeds up the reduction of the intensity of the disease. Most patients have recorded no relapses after this treatment. Other treatments are psychotherapy and regular medicine are offered. Psychotherapy is a great choice to get individuals assimilated back into â€Å"normal society†. However I would not recommend this for John because he did not isolate himself of loose social skills, he simply had to deal with the balancing of what was actually happening versus what was occurring in his mind. I also would not offer regular medicine because as seen in the movie, patients can simply stop taking it for what ever person reason they have, which defeats the purpose. As done in the movie, I would prefer the insulin treatment for John. Because he is such an intelligent man I believe it would be possible for him to almost return to a normal lifestyle if this medicine is going to decrease his symptoms. He will eventually learn to ignore and small and non-significant reoccurrences of his symptoms. Works Cited A Beautiful Mind. Dir. Ron Howard. Perf. Russel Crowe. Dreamworks , 2001. DVD. Donahue, Time. Psychological Disorders [PDF document]. Retrieved from Lecture Notes Online Web site: https://blackboard.vcu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FcontentWrapper.jsp%3Fattachment%3Dtrue%26navItem%3Dcontent%26content_id%3D_3130818_1%26course_id%3D_88979_1%26displayName%3DDisorders%2BVCU%2BSpring%2B2011%2Bstudent%2Bcopy.pdf%26href%3D%2F%2540%2540%2FA351CAB57C41453726BD6BBA28AA5DBA%2Fcourses%2F1%2FPSYC-101-901-2011Fall%2Fcontent%2F_3130818_1%2FDisorders%252520VCU%252520Spring%2525202011%252520student%252520copy.pdf Grohol, John M., and Psy.D.. â€Å"Psych Central: Schizophrenia Treatment.† Psych Central – Trusted mental health, depression, bipolar, ADHD and psychology information .. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2011. . â€Å"Insulin shock therapy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.† Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2011..