ABSTRACT
In 1994, John Nash, Ph.D., the American mathematician, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his contribution to game theory. Of surprise to many is that 35 years earlier, Nash was given the diagnosis of Schizophrenia. Starting with this first psychotic break at the age of 30, he was subsequently hospitalized several times. Attempts were made to treat him with medications, psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, and insulin shock therapy. In his estimation, none of these were successful. Yet, at the time of the award he was no longer psychotic. By John Nash’s own account, after several years of essentially being homeless, he stopped listening to his auditory hallucinations and began refuting his delusions. That’s right: He stopped listening to his hallucinations and began refuting his delusions. How could this be? Isn’t psychosis a lifelong, decompensating disorder? Can individuals recover without conventional treatment? Can hallucinations and delusions be defeated, as Nash claims? From an Adlerian perspective, the answer to the last two questions is a qualified “yes.” As the reader will soon learn, Nash’s self-description of his delusions and hallucinations and how they develop and change is remarkably similar to the Adlerian conceptualization of psychosis.
