A film that depicts elements of abnormal cognitive and behavior that I watched for the purpose of this assignment is A Beautiful Mind. A Beautiful Mind is a biographical film based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Memorial Prize recipient in economics. The film starts out Nash as a student at Princeton where he develops a new concept of game theory. His roommate Charles encourages him to propose his findings to the dean and get his work published. With much success of the article, Nash lands a position at MIT. A couple years later, Nash is taken to the Pentagon, where he meets an alluring supervisor, William Parcher of the United States Department of Defense. He offers Nash a job that would help him decode messages to detect a bomb the Soviet had been hiding. This code is said to be found in the newspapers and magazines so Nash spends a considerable amount of time looking for patterns in magazines and newspapers in order to prevent the Soviets plan. Nash subsequently becomes obsessive looking for these hidden patterns and believes he is being followed when he delivers his findings to a special encoded mailbox.
The stress of Nashs job takes a toll when he witnesses a shootout between his supervisor Parcher and Soviet agents, causing him to fear for his life. Alongside paranoia of being watched by the Soviet, Nash attempts to quit but Parcher blackmails him into staying on his assignment. Nash is then invited to del
iver a guest lecture at Harvard University where his speech is slurred and incomprehensible. Mainly because he is distraught when he believes the Soviet agents are there to take him. In an attempt to run from said agents, led by Dr. Rosen, Nash punches Rosen consequently forcing them to sedate him and send him to a psychiatric facility he believes is run by the Soviet. It is in this psychiatric facility that it is revealed John suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. According to the DSM, a person suffering from schizophrenia is typically dominated by relatively stable, often paranoid, fixed beliefs that are either false, over-imaginative or unrealistic. Often accompanied by hallucinations, in which a person experiences what seems to be real perception of something not actually present. Other predominant signs are delusions, in Nashs case he expressed what is called delusions of persecution, where he believed the Soviet were out to get him. lack of motivation for life, and mild clinical depression. As it turns out, Johns infamous roommate Charles, was a hallucination. He never had a roommate while attending Princeton. His job for the Pentagon and his boss Parcher were all hallucinations. Dr. Rosen explains to Johns wife: A mathematician with no military training is a government spy& or he has lost his grip with reality. The only way I can help him is to show him the difference from what is real and what is in his mind.