Question

Movie: A beautiful mind -Do you think SSD is accurately portrayed in this film? Describe the course and progression of John Nash’s illness as depicted in the film.Does John meet the DSM-5 criteria for SSD? Which MSE findings support/dispute this? Are auditory hallucinations more or less common than visual hallucinations in people with SSD? Can mental health professionals make accurate predictions about the likelihood of violence in people with mental illness?Is there any relationship between John’s mathematical genius and the course of his illness? How were John’s delusions of paranoia affected by the realities of his job? What elements of anxiety and depression are present in John, and at what points in the film are they heightened? Can a patient with SSD usually comprehend the fact that he/she is delusional when confronted with absolute and contradicting truths? John is depicted as having aged quite a bit in the film when compared to the other characters. How does the lifestyle of someone with untreated mental illness contribute to aging? What clues are there in the first half of the film to indicate that John is in the early stages of SSD? Do you think simply ignoring hallucinations is effective for most people with SSD?

Answer 1

The movie " A Beautiful Mind" is a nice combination of psychology and economics. SSD is somatic symptom disorder which occours with the extreme anxiety of a person caused due to any kind of body pains which is incurable or long term medications required. Thus patients loose patience and develops SSD. Here in this picture it has been shown that John is having a problem of hallucinations since he was graduating in school and later on its develops problems which affects his behaviour to the society and even with his beloved wife. This hallucinations are caused due to schizophrenia and paranoia . By watching the entire movie from a psychologist point of view, it can be said that John has hallucinations no doubt but it cant be said that he suffers from SSD or DSM 5 . His anxiety whatever caused is just because of his hallucinations and delusions that he later on was aware of , may be due to his beleifs with the relations he is into , which I will say always helped him a lot how to cope up with those hallucinations problems through self helped techniques. The problems which he was into has no relations with his mathmetical ability or his geniousness of being an economist , it could be developed by any person who thinks more than required . On such a situation if those thoughts are not delivered properly then such type of problems occoured sometimes as they faced a great dillemas inside their mind and if such situations persists for more than six months then they loose their mind controls and the base of such thoughts which causes a great confussion in them.

Apart from the facts of this movie , ignoring hallucinations may not always cure the SSD because SSD problem has a deeper root cause of pains or any other types of irritations in their body which afects mind when they are not free to do any work or to achieve a pre decided goal . SSD if neglected , may turn into major depressive disorders , better known as DSM IV, DSM V etc etc. Premature aging effect is there with these diseases as because the mind starts feeling that goals remaind unachieved due to physical problems in this life.... such thoughts are the major causes of pre mature aging in those patients.