Another gripe I had was that the film gave the viewer the idea that, at
times, having schizophrenia might be a little like getting some swell new
friends.  Two of Nash's "delusions" (the little girl and the friend) were
nice to him, encouraged him to eat when he'd overlooked meals, etc.

This flies in the face of what we know about schizophrenia.  Namely, that
the voices are almost universally hostile, terrifying and they often direct
the sufferer to hurt him/herself or others.

(For those of you new to TIPS, we had an interesting discussion a while back
about where the voices come from [inside the head, from the right, or from
the left, etc.] and whether they are always negative [almost, almost
always].  A search of the Archives might be worth your interest.)

As my daughter recalled of her psychiatric nursing work with schizophrenics,
"They don't get new friends, they see green aliens."  (She hated the movie
too for its simplistic presentation of a terrible disease.)

Beth Benoit
University System of New Hampshire


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