The Representation Of Schizophrenia In The Film, A Beautiful Mind

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Movie Project for Introduction to Psychology A Beautiful Mind is a movie directed by Ron Howard about an asocial mathematician, John Nash, who believes he is secretly working for the government. John, at first, seems to have awkward social tendencies and possibly even anxiety. As the story develops, the audience begins to see that the world John is living in is much different from reality. John begins to struggle with not only the confusion of those around him, but also the confusion in his own mind due to suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. This film is a dramatic, but realistic, representation of the trials and tribulations that accompany mental illness, and the ways in which society can help reverse the stigma that schizophrenia patients are faced with.
Character Description John Nash, played by Russell Crowe, is the main character in the Oscar winning film, A Beautiful Mind (A Beautiful Mind, 2001). The movie begins with John Nash attending graduate school at Princeton University. He was known as a mathematical genius, but had an array of odd personality traits. John was very awkward and antisocial. There were moments in the film
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“Schizophrenia is a severe brain disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally” (Schizophrenia, 2014). Schizophrenia can be misinterpreted as being a multiple personality disorder, but in reality it actually translates to “split brains” rather than “split minds” (Weiten, 2011, p. 484). There are many forms of schizophrenia including paranoid, catatonic, disorganized, and undifferentiated. Paranoid schizophrenia encompasses delusions of persecution; catatonic schizophrenia can involve moments of motor disturbances or random motor activity; disorganized schizophrenia includes a severe deterioration of behavior, and the undifferentiated type includes aspects of two or more of the various types of schizophrenia (Weiten, 2011, p.