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Depiction of Schizophrenia in A Beautiful Mind

Dikshita

A Beautiful Mind is an Oscar-winning depiction of the life of John Nash, the famous Mathematician and his journey with schizophrenia in the 1940s and 1950s. Nash develops the symptoms of schizophrenia in his early thirties and battles with the disorder for a significant chunk of his life. He suffers from the major progressive symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, like hallucinations and delusions. He manages to control his paranoia without the help of medication and it is said that he even recovered from the illness in his later years. We will make inferences from this movie to understand a mental health issue as serious as schizophrenia and question the reality of whether individuals can manage schizophrenia without medication.
         Schizophrenia is a serious brain disorder that distorts the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, perceives reality, and relates to others. It affects about 1 percent of the country’s population. The most common symptoms of schizophrenia are delusion, hallucination and disorganized speech. In the movie, Nash develops this condition in his early thirties after starting graduate studies in Princeton. This is a significant development and in most schizophrenia cases, people develop the disorder after major life stressors like starting college or a new job. Nash’s delusions start with his imaginary roommate Charles. He spends hours talking and hanging out with Charles without realizing he isn’t real. He later starts working for an imaginary government body as an official of the U.S against the Russians. These are hallucinations and delusions that distort Nash’s take on reality and makes him act in an unconventional manner. The movie has done a commendable job in portraying the imagination from both the patient’s and the outsider’s point of view.
During the course of Nash’s treatment, he is administered with insulin shocks. This is one of the many gruesome ways in which mental illnesses were treated in the 1940-50s. Mental conditions that are now treatable were labeled as madness and treated in inhumane ways during the 19th century; torture, isolation, shock treatment to name a few. Schizophrenia was treated cruelly until the late 20th-century categorization of it as a mental illness that is treated by a doctor and therapy. Nash was also prescribed anti-psychotics along with his shock treatment therapy. However, he stopped taking them as the meds would make him dull and reduce his sex drive. Most antipsychotics come with a range of side-effects that are known to dull the patient’s mind, lead to weight gain and reduce functioning to basic necessity. Though the field of medicine has advanced enough to gather the right combination of medicines to treat illnesses like Schizophrenia, it is still a long road before they don’t come with conditions attached.
Recovering from Schizophrenia is tough; stats show that only one out of five patients recovers from the illness completely and those who do hardly rely on willpower alone. Though, in the movie, John Nash recovers from Schizophrenia without any medical help. He manages by ignoring the hallucinations and taking help from his family and friends, especially his wife. The three most important aspects of any illness like Schizophrenia’s road to recovery are drugs, therapy, and emotional support.  Therefore, it is important that we question the reality of what has been portrayed in the movie. People with schizophrenia have worry differentiating between what is real and what is imaginary, and may be withdrawn or have trouble expressing normal emotions in social situations. To manage the illness over a lifetime, most schizophrenics rely on a combination of medications, therapy and the support of friends and family. Doctors have reported that their schizophrenic patients requested an off-medication treatment after watching the movie. This ended up hurting the long-term recovery goals of many patients. Thus, it is important to think twice before picturing any mental illness as they play a significant role in forming an image in the audience’s head. While the movie does a commendable job in depicting the horrors of being a schizophrenic, it fails at doing justice to the reality of the situation when it comes to recovery from the illness. 

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