ABSTRACT
The remarkable story of John Nash, recovered chronic schizophrenic and Nobel Laureate, has acquired worldwide publicity through the success of Sylvia Nasar’s biography, A Beautiful Mind (1998), and the film of the same name derived from it (2001). At the age of 30 (1958), already recognized as a mathematician of genius, Nash suffered a schizophrenic breakdown from which he did not recover for over 25 years. Drawing on several sources of information, these notes will outline some of the salient features that lend themselves to a psychoanalytic perspective on the nature of his illness; the different factors that may have predisposed him to a psychotic breakdown, and precipitated and perpetuated it; and the psychodynamic pathways which may have led to his eventual recovery. Certain features of his case, not explored in the book and film, have important implications for both psychoanalytic and psychiatric approaches to the understanding and treatment of severe psychotic illness, and these will be reflected upon in this chapter. The aim of the essay is to illustrate how object-relations concepts of modern psychoanalytic thinking can contribute in an important and practical way to the contemporary approach of psychiatry to schizophrenic-type and other psychoses.
