Ruby Wyman
Mr. Mayers
AP Psychology
October 27, 2014

A Beautiful Mind Reflection I learned many things about schizophrenia from this movie. I learned a lot about how people with this disease act. They are socially awkward, and very direct when talking to others. While talking to people, they feel agitated, and they don’t make much eye contact while socializing. They would rather be on their own; they are independent people because they are so paranoid. These people are very smart minded and never give up, and they also don’t easily distracted, so they can focus on their work. In the movie A Beautiful Mind, John Nash has schizophrenia but isn’t aware of it until later in his life. He is able to see angels, numbers, and equations in everyday life around him. He was told that he was the world’s best natural code breaker, and that he could work for the government on a classified assignment to find out where the Russians have a bomb. He met his really good friend, Charles, at Princeton, (He was his roommate). He then meets a girl from a class he taught and they eventually get married and have a child. Later on, towards the end of the movie, Nash found out he has schizophrenia. He finds out that this friend Charles, Charles’s niece, and his whole top secret job with the government were all hallucinations. They were all in his mind and imaginary. When he went to the doctor, he said the worst nightmare of schizophrenia is not knowing what is real. The doctor also said that if they found out earlier it would have been easier to cure, but now it is just getting worse and worse. His delusions kept taking over his life and would distract him from work. His doctor gave him some medications but they interfered with Nash’s work and he couldn’t stay focused. So he stopped taking them secretly and the delusions came back and he again believed they were real. He would listen to them which lead him to trouble. Then he went back on the medications later and went to go back to Princeton to be around familiar people and try to have a social life again. Some treatments for schizophrenia that I learned about include electro-shock therapy, antipsychotic, antidepressant, and antianxiety medication, psychotherapy,