Solution
M answered on
Apr 30 2020
Running Head: MENTAL STATE ASSESSMENT 1
MENTAL STATE ASSESSMENT 8
Mental State Assessment
A Beautiful Mind
Background
Entitled, ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (Howard, 2001), is a biographical movie inspired by the real life story of John Fo
es Nash Jr. (1928-2015), a
illiant mathematician of American descent. Nash was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1994 in Economics for his remarkable work on game theory. He is also known for his differential geometry and equations. The movie, directed by Ron Howard was released in 2001 bagging four academy awards; best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actress while also nominated for several other awards. The story of Nash is not only popular because of his developments in Mathematics and Economics but also for the fact that he suffered from Schizophrenia (Contaoi, 2011). An amazing life of the great genius of the 20th century.
Character Identification
The protagonist, John Nash played by Russell Crowe in the movie is a Princeton University student in his late 20s at the beginning of the movie (Howard, 2001). He is a co-recipient of Carnegie Scholarship with Martin Hansen for Mathematics. Although a smart mathematician, he is better known as awkward and fairly antisocial among his peers. He devote most of his time in developing an original mathematical theorem; while he also spend his time out drinking with his college friends, his roommate Charles is his closest friend whom he spend a lot of the time with. Nash developed a thesis on game theory and per the recognition of this work he was appointed at MIT.
Years later, he was secretly assigned alongside William Parcher from the United States Department of Defense to decode encrypted messages of the Soviet. The story proceeds to when he met a student, Alicia Larde and the two fall in love. He also met his Charles’ niece Marcee on his visit to Princeton where the later convinced him to propose Alicia. Thereafter, they were ma
ied following he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The side effects of antipsychotic medication took a toll on him and he secretly decided to discontinue the medication. The symptom took a relapse and he met Parcher again after which a near accident took place with his wife and child. This
ought his ma
iage on the verge of its end but he begged his wife to stay.
Nash was then able to separate his hallucinations with the real world; he realised that Charles, Marcee and Parcher exists only in his mind and that his mission to decode messages were just as unreal. He stopped taking medicines but rather decided to deal with his symptoms himself. He then return to Princeton and teach in 1979. He is well known and honoured for his work. The movie ended with as scene where he walks out of an auditorium in Stockholm with his wife and son after the ceremony where he received a Nobel Prize in Economics; he sees Charles, Marcee and Parcher standing at the corner while watching him. This was in the year 1994.
Behaviour, Diagnosis and Analysis
John Nash was diagnosed with Schizophrenia by Dr. Rosen in the movie (Howard, 2001). The viewers were
ought to a realisation halfway through the movie that the several situations, places and people in the story are just an illusion which exists only in the ‘beautiful mind’ of Nash. This suddenly set a turn that he has a certain mental illness. Although he has been diagnosed as mentioned, it is imperative to scrutinise his behaviour and its development throughout the movie in order to a
ive at an accurate diagnosis through a careful examination.
American Psychiatric Association (2013), DSM- 5 defines Schizophrenia as when “two (or more) of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1 -month period (or less if successfully treated). At least one of these must be (1 ), (2), or (3):
1. Delusions.
2. Hallucinations.
3....