Mental Illness In Pop Culture

In this series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that media both reflect and influence popular perception. In this episode, we discuss the portrayal of genius, creativity, social awkwardness, paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis, and medication side-effects for Nobel Prize winning mathematician and Game Theory contributor John F. Nash, as depicted in the biographical drama A Beautiful Mind>, based on the biography of the same name by Sylvia Nasar. We also discuss Nash's relationship with his wife and primary caretaker, Alicia, and how she was affected by her husband's mental health issues and taking/non-taking of medication.