John Nash's Schizophrenia In The Film, A Beautiful Mind

1.
The title “A Beautiful Mind” is mentioned in Nash’s Nobel Prize speech in which he says: “Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift is to discover a beautiful heart.” This quote fulfills the role of summarizing the overall theme of the movie, which is how the power of love is the strongest cure to any disease. Throughout the movie, John Nash aimlessly tries to discover his “truly original idea”, and believed that any problem could be solved through knowledge and reason. However, upon discovering his schizophrenia, Nash struggles to face reality and becomes overwhelmed by his urge to succeed in life, as well as dealing with his delusion. Fortunately, his wife Alicia shows him that with love, they are able to overcome

Throughout the film, even with insulin shocks and other forms of medication, it is shown that the symptoms kept recurring and that there truly is no direct treatment for mental illnesses, only strategies to temporarily lessen the severity of the symptoms. In the film, the psychiatrist Dr. Rosen was the first character to explicitly reveal Nash’s schizophrenia, albeit perceived as a Russian Spy by Nash. Upon capturing Nash, despite his delusions and disbelief, Rosen was very direct with Nash, explaining that he was suffering from schizophrenia and that Charles nor Parcher was real. This had left Nash in a state of shock and disbelief, since his peers at the university had never mentioned anything about his delusions and “craziness”. Rosen also provides Nash with periodic insulin shocks and medication to relieve the symptoms. Therefore, Dr. Rosen is portrayed as a very reliable character that Alicia will also later depend on and call incase Nash attempts to kill

The film depicted schizophrenia as a scary illness, not because “the moments most important to you were gone, but worse, had never been.” (Rosen) This demonstrates the importance of cherishing moments in life to the audience, as well as outlines the true severity of mental illnesses. The film also makes a connection to our modern society in terms of our values in life. Like Nash, many young students in the modern world strive and place themselves in stressful situations, all for some sort of academic success. However, we can learn from the movie that developing strong connections with society plays a major part in success, and that relying solely on facts and numbers could potentially lead to emotional