A Beautiful Mind

After viewing both the episode of Private Practice and the movie "A Beautiful Mind," (2001), I have been exposed to two instances of Mass Media's take on Schizophrenia.  There was the little girl in the show who talked to her imaginary friend, just as Russel Crowe's character, John Nash, interacted with imaginary people.  In both instances, the people suffering the disorder were exceedingly smart; the girl was achieving mathematical solutions at a level well beyond her grade, and John Nash was one of the smartest mathematicians in Princeton.  However, the involvement of imaginary friends began to cause problems.  Before too long, the little girl's imaginary friend "told" her to drown the family cat.  At the same time, John Nash almost drowns his infant son in the bathtub.  In each case, the both of them would attribute the atrocity (or near-atrocity) to their imaginary companions, even though they committed the act themselves.  Also, in both cases, the treatment is one that is rather gruesome.  For the little girl, it is implied by the father's outrage that she will receive electroshock therapy, while John Nash receives insulin shock.  Both treatments are meant to realign the brain, but are both rather painful to watch.  In the end, though, things seem to work out. The parents of the little girl realize that the sooner she is treated, the less degenerative the schizophrenia will be; while John Nash continues to work at Princeton and wins a Nobel Prize for mathematics.  The parallel was an intriguing one that I noticed, and it really ingrains an idea of the traits of schizophrenia in the mind of the viewer.