'A Beautiful Mind' Sparks Awareness

ByABC News
March 25, 2002, 9:24 AM

March 25 -- As a physician specializing in the treatment of people who suffer from schizophrenia, I literally jumped for joy when the Oscar for best picture went to A Beautiful Mind.

Given all the fear and prejudice about schizophrenia that is so prevalent in our society, A Beautiful Mind is a shining triumph for public understanding about mental illness.

Loosely based upon a biography by Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind tells the story of mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr.

After achieving a stunning theoretical breakthrough as a graduate student at Princeton, his life descends into the hellish nightmare that we call schizophrenia.

Only after decades of suffering and perseverance did Nash succeed in winning academia's highest honor the Nobel Prize.

Skewed Perspectives

"Schizophrenia" is an archaic term that represents a group of neurobiological disorders affecting 2.5 million Americans.

While schizophrenia can have a devastating impact on affected individuals, it can be treated successfully. In fact, research has shown that many people with schizophrenia can recover to live satisfying and productive lives.

Schizophrenia is more common than Alzheimer's Disease, Multiple Sclerosis or Muscular Dystrophy. It is also more stigmatizing.

Although many people learn about schizophrenia through their own personal struggles or those of a family member, the majority learns about schizophrenia through the mass media.

According to a 1990 survey of public attitudes sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, "Mass media is, far and away, the public's primary source of information about mental illness."

Media depictions of schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders are typically inaccurate, portraying individuals who suffer from them as unpredictable, dangerous, and violent. Examples include movies such as Psycho II, Halloween and Me, Myself and Irene.

Taking a Different Tack

A Beautiful Mind has struck a different chord. Rather than portraying mentally ill persons as monsters or "maniacs," this movie presents the all-too-human side of those who bear the burden of schizophrenia.