The behavior exemplified by Russell Crowe in this clip from the movie The Beautiful Mind is consistent with a manic condition. The character in question also portrays the chorea condition where a patient usually has his feet and legs move involuntarily. The patient makes sudden quick movements with the limbs. These movements are consistent with psychomotor agitation which can also be referred to as hyperactivity (Ronningstam, 2005).
The patient also portrays some elements of hallucinations when he begins speaking with an imaginative person in this case, the character Charles. The patient’s eye movement especially in relation to the imaginative character with who he attempts to speak to is also consistent with hallucination (Gabbard, 2007). This also presents the emotional status of the patient. In this clip, the patient is really disturbed and seems to recalling events that may have affected him in a negative manner.
The mood of the personality portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow is negative. The character seems to undergoing a state of depression. The nurse can identify elements of suicidal ideation from the actions of the character (Gitterman & Heller, 2010). She locks herself in a room and rolls up a garment into a rope which she probably would use to hang herself with.
This character does not portray homicidal ideations. She however has hallucinations, imaginations of past and distant events (Gitterman & Heller, 2010). These are evident when she locks herself in a place where there is no exit and closes her eyes and then she views herself with two other men and a child walking out of the very room she had locked herself in.
These are probably just vivid images in her mind of past events that happened in her life and probably the main cause of her suicidal ideation.
Patients with mental health issues or are suicidal are rather challenging to take care of. I have had an experience in which my patient always had a hallucination of a distant world. The patient kept on attempting to escape to this world he imagined. I had a rough time in his initial days since he would leave and we would have to comb the mental institution searching for him. Luckily the institution was fenced all around and he thus could go further than the perimeter wall. Finally I had to confine him against my will.
References
Ronningstam, F. E. (2005). Identifying and Understanding the Narcissistic Personality. Oxford:
Oxford University Press
Gabbard, O. G. (2007). Gabbard’s Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders. New York: American
Psychiatric Pub.
Gitterman, A. & Heller, R. N. (2010). Mental Health and Social Problems: A Social Work
Perspective. New York: Taylor & Francis.
