Analysis Of Dementia Praepelin's A Beautiful Mind

Emil Kraepelin was one of the first psychiatrist to popularize the term ‘Dementia Praecox’ in the 1899 edition of Psychiatrie (Dementia). Dementia praecox characterizes as impairment in the cognitive and mental functioning's in attentions, memory and behavior (Dementia). This term continued being of use in the mental health field until psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler renamed dementia praecox with Schizophrenia (Dementia). The term derives from the greek translation ‘to cut/split’(schizo) and mind(phrenia) (Burton). The ‘split’ in schizophrenia refers to the split from reality through disturbed thoughts, actions and emotions. In present studies, researchers have yet to distinguish a primary cause to account for all people living with schizophrenia

Depictions of mental illnesses have often created negative stigmas and stereotypes of violence and belligerence. Doctors (e.g., psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist) are also depicted as dishonest, untrustworthy and conceited (Fawcett). Media production often portray treatments of mental illness in distorted scenes and images. Looking closely at media representations of schizophrenia, we discuss A Beautiful Mind; directed by Ron Howard (Film). Portrayed by actor Russell Crowe, the film focuses on the life of Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash, a renowned mathematician diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (Film). From the beginning, John Nash portrays a narcissistic person who isolates himself from his peers. Focusing on his goals to invent revolutionary equations in mathematics, Nash prefers to not attend his obligatory Princeton class and spend his time in the library writing theories on glass windows. After being offered a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during his last semester, Nash falls in love with his student and decides to marry Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly). It is not until they marry does Alicia realize her husband has suffered from hallucinations. At the half way point of the film, we discover the some of the places and people are within Nash’s ‘beautiful’ mind. Nash is now paranoid with hallucinations of government organizations

However, there has been some controversy on the realistic portrayal of Nash and his illness. In a positive view, the motion picture depicts Nash’s sexual dysfunction and speech abnormalities in a realistic way. Additionally, his awkwardness, lack of conversational skills and overall mannerisms brilliantly depict a schizophrenic. Most importantly, the production highlights the use of social and family support in recovery. Although the film reduces the stereotypes of schizophrenia, it does tend to overdramatize in certain scenes. The lack of medications used to push forth treatment of family is unrealistic (News), for schizophrenia cannot be helped with just family support. There was also controversy in Nash’s age (News), it is proven that men are diagnosed earlier than women (as stated above) and Nash was not diagnosed until he was in his 30’s. Lastly were the controversies with Nash’s hallucinations. In schizophrenia, auditory (voices) hallucinations are more common than visual hallucinations (Chaudhury). An example of an auditory hallucination given to me by a schizophrenic would be switching the channels on a radio until it is between two channels. The voices coming from both channels at the same time is probably the closest a non-schizophrenic is to an auditory