R.D. Laing says, “Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair.” What
R.D Laing is trying to interrupt to us humans is that those who suffer with the illness of schizophrenia aren’t being understood because they can’t comprehend the absence of hope, that schizophrenics are going through with their everyday lives. The word schizophrenia is Greek for “split mind”. It is a common belief that a person suffering from schizophrenia or a “Schizo” has a split personality, but actually the person’s thinking, feeling, and behavior are far from normal that they get to the point where they interfere with their ability to function in everyday life. People with schizophrenia are in their own state of mind, which sets them apart from society around them. People with schizophrenia suffer from terrifying symptoms such as hearing internal voices not heard by others, or believing that other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. Their symptoms can be grouped into three categories : positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and psychomotor symptoms. Positive symptoms of schizophrenia include delusions, illusions, disorganized speech and thinking . Negative symptoms reflect an absence or reduction of normal functions, emotional expressive, or speech. One commonly seen negative symptom is reflect to as a flat affect or affective flattering. ( “In psychopathology class of 202”). In the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, Russell Crowe plays a role as John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who came up with an equation he wanted his class to solve. At age 31, he develops schizophrenia and suffers a mental breakdown. Nash knows throughout the entire movie that he is suffering from a mental illness, but his major issue is that he believes he can solve his illness the way he can solve math equations. Nash is constantly trying to figure out everything he goes through. Instead of him trying to seek help like his wife does for him, he just continues to see if he’s able to handle his illness on his own , by puzzling up the hallucinations with his mathematic equations. Nash thinks he’s able to solve everything in life, but in reality the only problems he is able to solve is his life is only math related. I diagnose Nash with schizophrenia not only because of that’s how he supposed to act, but also because of the scenes I watched in the movie that includes the symptoms of schizophrenia. Nash shows negative and positive symptoms throughout the movie. The positive symptoms that Nash suffers from are the people he sees and hears that no one else is able to see nor hear. The people that are in the mind of Nash are Charles, Charles niece Marcie, and Parcher. In the scene when Nash and Alison go on their first big date, Nash sees Charles and Parcher. While Alison is speaking to Nash about a painting
Nash’s eyes are following Charles and Parcher, but it just looks like his eyes are wondering around because he isn’t interested. Although, Nash’s mind is in two places at one time he still knew what Alsion was saying about the painting. ( “A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard, made in 2001”.)
Another one of Nash’s negative symptoms is a scene when he wants to wash his baby boy. In this scene, it’s about to be a storm so his wife says she going to get the clothes that were hanging up outside. Nash insist that he wants to help out and wash the baby. Alison whom is Nash’s wife doesn’t like his idea to much because she knows his mind can spilt at any time, but she feels bad and allows him to do so. All of the sudden she goes up to the bathroom and sees Nash closing the window. Alison asks Nash where the baby is and he replies back to her saying Charles
