Commentary A Beautiful Mind

Commentary a Beautiful Mind
By Josefina Ortzar
John Nash was a very important mathematician, who made an enormous contribution
on economics by the equilibrium of the game theory. He studied at Princeton where he
was kind of isolated from the rest of the students, except from the mathematicians. For
John it was hard to establish relationships with others, because his personality shocked
the rest of the population by being so honest and direct. Because of his attitudes and
gestures, society, stereotyped him and he started to be known as a freak. After he got
married he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Since that moment Johns life changed
abruptly with therapy, medicines and all kind of treatments. In order to understand his
behavior, this commentary will focus on the different psychological perspectives: the
biology, the mind, and the environment.
John Nashs behavior can be analyzed from the biology perspective. First of all we
need to understand the definition of schizophrenia given by the National Institute of Mental
Health, which is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks,
feels, and behaves. People with schizophrenia often have an altered perception of reality.
A beautiful mind illustrates very well this illness, within all the symptoms and illusions that a
person with this disorder lives his normal life. While I was watching the movie many
questions about the origin of the schizophrenia started developing on my mind. One of
them: is this mental disease inherited or purchasable? Scientists have long known that
schizophrenia mainly runs in families, this owes to the inheritance of the genes. However,
there are many people who have family members with this disorder and do not develop it,
because the gene does not trigger, moreover there are people that have schizophrenia
without familiar precedents. Also it is believed that there are different genes that may
increase the risk of this illness, but there is no gene that causes the disorder by itself.
Relating this information with the case of the main character in the movie, we can say that
the disease was activated by an external fact during his years of university, but you need a
gene to trigger this condition. (The National Institute of Mental Health, 2016).
Secondly, the mind perspective also shows how schizophrenic people perceive the
world; their reactions and how mental processes are developed on their minds. We do not
have to forget that hallucinations, delusions and movement disorders are some of the
symptoms that this people have, so clearly having those illusions alter their realities. On
my point of view this is the worst part of schizophrenia because you do not have the ability
to distinguish what is true or what is false, an even they might kill or hurt someone. There
are two scenes that caught my attention, the first one was when John though they were
kidnapping him and he was in the middle of a hallucination shouting to imaginary persons.
The other example is when he was taking care of his son and left him in charge to his
friend, Charles, who actually was part of his imagination. In both situations we can see that
John is affected somehow by the mental disease.
Finally, the last aspect that affects John is the environment. In this movie there are tow
different environment; the one that triggered the illness and the one that he keeps living in
order to continue his life with schizophrenia. As I said before the mental disorder was
activated by an external fact of his background, in this case stress. How can I say that?
Because in the course of the movie after he went to therapy every time he suffered a
stressful situation he had hallucinations. The second environment, that I think it is more
important, is the way that he decided to keep looking forward and move on. He was
surrounded by his wife, Alicia, who found a way to lead him back to earth every time he
had a lapse; and also by the mathematicians who integrated him back to university and
encourage him to find a solution to equations.
To conclude we can say that a brilliant man, called John Nash, was able to make a
balance between his perception of reality and normal life. This means that he could
overcome the obstacles that schizophrenia imposed on his path. Johns human
relationships is something that I need to highlight, because it was very hard for him to deal
with expectations of other people and also it was difficult to protect his family while he was
hallucinating. At the end of the movie we could observe that he was capable of forming a
family and also make friends, for this reason this mathematician is an image of
perseverance and daily fight in every aspect of life when it comes to social development.
John was an extremely strong person, but without the support that his wife and friends
gave him, he would not have been able to fight schizophrenia.
References:
A Beautiful Mind movie
National Institute of Mental Health. (February 2016). Schizophrenia. Retrieved April 19,
2016, from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia/index.shtml
Sam Hussaim. (March 2010). A Beautiful Mind. Retrieved April,
http://beautifulmind-m71.blogspot.cl/2010/03/beautiful-mind.html
2016,
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