Mental Illness of the Character Depicted in the Movie "A Beautiful Mind"

Psychology
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Psychology
Part A
A Beautiful Mind is an account of mathematician John Nash. The film depicts the journey of the mathematician together with his great contributions and distress due to mental health illnesses. Nash became delusional at a young age and began hearing strange voices, thinking that individuals were following him and then he started believing various conspiracy theories. Initially, the problem would emerge then disappear, but with time the symptom became part of his life. Nash was not in a position to operate normally since the sickness was taking control over his life.
DSM-IV characterizes Schizophrenia as a chronic mental illness. The symptoms of the disease include hearing voices, hallucinations, lack of motivation, false beliefs and delusions. Individuals with schizophrenia tend to have additional mental health problems like depression, anxiety and substance use disorder. Further, the patients have challenges handling their social, professional and family life. The lack of adequate treatment makes it challenging for the patients to cope up with the symptoms which have adverse effects on their personal lives. In this case, Nash delusional and also hallucinated. He fills the blackboards of Princeton University with indecipherable scribblings and keeps wandering about the campus in an apparent gaze. It is clear from the two symptoms that Nash has paranoid schizophrenia since he portrays the symptoms associated with the illness.
At the beginning of the movie, Nash shows signs of mental disorder at a young age. As the film progresses, he is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (Goldsman & Nasar, 2001). After being released from the psychiatric hospital, Nash manages to keep his life in order and continues with his professional life. The hospital requires him to take medication to assist in treating the symptoms, however, as Nash takes the medication, he asserts that the drugs prevent him from thinking freely and thus have caused him to make little progress with his research work (Thacker and Hughes, 2013). Consequently, Nash stops taking the medication which costs him since he becomes delusional once again. The seriousness of the matter is demonstrated when the wife leaves him with the baby as she goes out to hand up laundry. When the wife returns, she notices that the baby is almost drowning as Nash is having a schizophrenic episode. The scene presents an opportunity for the audience to know how schizophrenic patients are likely to behave. It shows that schizophrenic patients are likely to stop taking their medication which causes more relapses.
Nash receives treatment through hospitalization and psychiatric treatment (Goldsman & Nasar, 2001). While in the hospital, Nash commences treatment with antipsychotic medication. Initially, Nash is admitted to the hospital due to his severe episodes. After a short time, the psychiatric hospital discharges him and requires that he takes his medication as prescribed to assist in treating the symptoms. However, Nash stops taking the medication shortly after the discharge which leads to relapses. Although the admission and prescription of the patient was essential, I would recommend a similar treatment tog...