Mental Health Brilliant Madness

Question: Describe about the Mental Health for Brilliant Madness. Answer: 1. The video Brilliant madness depicts John Nashs own personal account over his experience with mental illness. As a mathematician studying in Princeton University in 1949, John Nash stood out compared to other mathematician in terms of his talent as well eccentricity. He had a sense of superiority and was always interested in problem that no other mathematician can solve. He always sought his own ways to solve those problems instead of relying on class notes. His behaviour irritated many people and he was very egocentric. His psychotic breakdown occurred when he suffered stressful incidents in life like when he was not able perform to the top of his ability as a mathematician. He turned form a confident young person to an anxious person filled with fear and doubts. His mind and personality disintegrated very fast. He was hospitalized after advice by a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (YouTube 2016). He was hospitalized for 50 days and he was treated according to DSM/ medical model of mental illness in the 1950s. According to this model, mental illnesses were thought to be caused by complex interaction of internal and external factors. For example physiatrist at that thought it to be caused by socio-environmental stressors. Impairment assessment was done on the basis of what a person was not able to do instead of what he was able to do. Medical model of 1950s regarded disables person as the problem instead of disorder in brain. The main approach was that patients will have to adapt to the world or lockep up in hospital or other mental care institutes (Kawa Giordano, 2012). If John had continued treatment according to this model, then he would have suffered serious memory loss. He was an ambitious person and stressing him as the problem would have severely devastated his mental condition. He tried to come out of his condition by his own dedication to bury all his illusions away f or some time. If John was hospitalized now, then he would have been treated and diagnosed according to DSM V model which would have focussed on analysing the symptoms during a certain time period. John would not have been victimized according to his own deficiency; rather he would have been treated on the basis of genetic variability and neurodevelopment model. Current model focuses on diagnostic feature like time of onset and associated disorder to treat Nash (Willcutt et al., 2012). The current DSM V model would have been helpful for Nash as according to current system, psychiatrist would have adopted dimensional approach to monitor the severity of mental condition and they would have not categorised it strictly according to present or absent of disorder. In current situation, psychiatrist or social workers would have provided him continuum based assessment by greater detail on symptoms instead of classifying just on the basis of present or absence of condition. This would have provided Nash with accurate treatment (American Psychiatric Association 2013). 2. After leaving the US, Nash was hospitalized again after he was found terrified in a college campus and he was advised to be admitted to lunatic asylum. In the asylum, he was subjected to aggressive treatment procedures like insulin coma therapy. This treatment was in the 1960s, because at time there was the notion that schizophrenia is caused due to metabolic problems of irregulation of glucose. Patients were comatose by insulin injection and this would lead to consistent seizures. This was an aggressive approach as patient had the risk of dying too. This experience proved that there were significant flaws in Medical laws of that time. Johns statement that he felt like he was treated as an animal and inhumanity proved the limitations of the medical model of that time. Nash had to endure this inhuman treatment for six weeks and the long-term effect of the treatment was disastrous for him. The treatment was not at all helpful for him and he was devastated and battered and he lost al l his early memories. Considering his experience of treatment at the mental asylum, it can be said that medical model has significant flaws. Firstly, the treatment according to medical approach had significant side-effects which lead to his loss of early memories. He tried to visit people to bring all his memories back. The medical model of that time highly concentrated on physical causes which were mostly inconclusive; however the environmental and psychological causes were ignored. It leads to ethical issues too as an ambitious person like Nash was transformed into a battered person after the insulin therapy. The DSM model of that time had little reliability and it lead to significant discrimination and violation of human rights by causing immense suffering to Nash (Kendler, 2012). Nashs treatment according to DSM model would not have been useful even now because psychiatric model of classification according to DSM and ICD because it is not based on objective data such blood test or CT scan of brain, rather the model was developed according to clinical consensus. Many researchers have raised question over the clinical reliability of the DSM model for diagnosing mental illness. This is because DSM does not stress on diagnostic thresholds and it categorized many people as mentally ill unnecessary ill. This can have serious impact on self-esteem and motivation of patients. Another limitation of DSM/clinical model is that it is based on little scientific justification and research evidence; hence it will expose patients to serious risk because of inappropriate medical treatment. DSM model does not stress on socio-cultural cause of suffering, thereby biological cause of mental illness will continue to be wrongly diagnosed. According to current modification in DSM-5, person with grief will come under category of mental illness. This indicates great discrepancy in diagnosis because this will mean any person suffering grief due to loss of family members and sleep deprivation will be regarded as person with depressive disorder (Morey Skodol, 2013). Therefore, it will just unnecessarily increase the number of people diagnosed with mental illness. Reference American Psychiatric Association. (2013).Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5). American Psychiatric Pub. Kawa, S., Giordano, J. (2012). A brief historicity of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: issues and implications for the future of psychiatric canon and practice.Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine,7(1), 1. Kendler, K. S. (2012). Epistemic iteration as a historical model for psychiatric nosology: promises and limitations.Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry II: Nosology, 303-322. Morey, L. C., Skodol, A. E. (2013). Convergence between DSM-IV-TR and DSM-5 diagnostic models for personality disorder: evaluation of strategies for establishing diagnostic thresholds.Journal of Psychiatric Practice,19(3), 179-193. Willcutt, E. G., Nigg, J. T., Pennington, B. F., Solanto, M. V., Rohde, L. A., Tannock, R., ... Lahey, B. B. (2012). Validity of DSM-IV attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptom dimensions and subtypes.Journal of abnormal psychology,121(4), 991. YouTube. (2016).A Brilliant Madness. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r33KSy-b4Mk [Accessed 28 Nov. 2016].