A Beautiful Note: Tom Harrell w/Schizophrenia

I thought this clip was pretty interesting. First of all, it’s quite amazing that someone with a debilitating disease like schizophrenia can even function at all. Can you imagine how hard daily life would be if you constantly had voices in your head telling you that you suck or that you’re not worth anything? Things like that hurt in normal everyday life when you hear them, but when you hear them all the time, never-ending, the effects have to be a lot worse. I know I couldn’t function if I heard those things constantly and couldn’t do anything about it. It would really damage your self esteem and you would definitely have no confidence in doing anything.

I think it’s nothing short of remarkable that this man can play the trumpet at a world-class level. It’s interesting that when he starts playing or even talking about music or the arts that his personality changes completely. When the interviewer mentioned music, his face lit up and you could visually see the change in this personality. When the topic switched again back to the voices, he seemed to go back into his “normal” state and the viewer could tell that they’re acting up again. I’m curious to know why the voices seem to vanish when he’s playing the trumpet. Does he tap into the creative part of his brain more and the voices seem to get lost in the mix? Or maybe he just stops thinking and, like the clip said at the end, the music plays him? Regardless, it’s fascinating that the voices disappear when he’s playing and then come back immediately upon stopping. I find it interesting that the hallucinations even let him play music at all. I can imagine them saying something like “don’t put the trumpet up to your lips or bad things will happen.” I’m sure this does happen from time to time and he feels obliged to comply, but the fact that he still plays and can play at such a high level is amazing.

This interview was very neat and Tom is an extremely inspiring man. I also thought it was neat that his wife can always see the beauty in him and is so madly in love with a manw who has schizophrenia.
Tom was a paranoid schizophrenic with auditory hallucinations.. he constantly heard voices in his head telling him how worthless and terrible he was--except when he played the trumpet. He also had mild motor problems such as strange facial expressions and twitches. These hallucinations and motor problems are 2 of the many symptoms of schizophrenia. Some of the others include disorders of thought, disorder of attention, and emotional disorders.
There are many plausable explanations for the cause of schizophrenia, and it is likely that it is a combination of all of them. One explanation could be the biological causes. Studies have found a genetic predispostion for the disease--an increased genetic similarity is associated with increased risk for developing schizophrenia. Researchers have been searing for the location of specific genes that are involved, and in the past 10-15 years, they have a found numerous genetic markers for the disease. There are also neurological causes which have been revealed by fMRIs. Research has found that in up to 80% of the brains of schizophernics, the brain ventricles are larger than that ventricles of mentally healthy people. fMRIs have also shown that the brains of schizophernics also have significantly less activiation in the prefrontal cortex.
The environment is yet another possible influence on schizophrenia. Stressful events have been shown to contribute to the development and onset of schizophrenia. The diasthesis stress theory of schizophrenia states that some people have a genetic predisposition that interacts with life stressors to result in the onset/development of the disease. This theory, however, assumes that biological/neurological factors initially produced a predisposition--it adds that a stressful environment can increase the risk and vulnerability for devloping the disease.
As we learn more and more about schizophrenia, we are able to understand that causes and figure out better treatments to this serious mental disorder.

Hearing about this man is one thing, actually being able to hear and see him play the trumpet and how he reacts once he stops playing is something else. It's amazing that he can be an absolute genius for writing jazz music and a highly renowned trumpet player with this mental disorder or even be able to function through daily life at all. I know for me it becomes hard to make yourself go through the daily activities of life with just a migraine, so I can't imagine constantly having voices in my head everywhere I go telling me that I am pathetic. Seems like it would lead to huge self-esteem issues, depression, and maybe not wanting to partake in everyday life. Seeing the different reactions on his face after he stops playing shows you the huge effect the voices in his mind have upon him that tell him he's no good and he should die. I too am also curious as to why it is the trumpet playing that makes the voices disappear. Is it because it is something he absolutely loves and has the utmost focus on that makes them vanish while the music is going? How do other creative artistic activities affect the voices (like maybe drawing, like the illustration the program showed that he did as a child)? I noticed that when the interviewer switched to talking about his music, it became much easier for him to communicate than when it was questions about his life with schizophrenia. He seemed more unwilling to answer or like the voices increased in intensity when the attention was brought to his disorder.

I was really impressed by how talented Tom is and the amazing music he plays on his trumpet. It really seemed like something you would see in a fictional film, and not in a real life documentary. I was also really touched by how understanding, caring, and attached his wife is to him. Living with a person who has a severe mental disease like Schizophrenia and caring for them on a daily basis takes an incredible amount of patience and understanding on her part. I was intrigued by the fact that his focus on the music keeps the voices away tha Schizophrenia causes him to hear, but the voices return when he is asked to discuss his disease. I noticed how his amount of eye contact and willingness to communicate changed when the person interviewing him switched topics and started questioning him about his mental disease. He was eager to discuss his music and willing to make eye contact, but grew uncomfortable when the interviewer brought up Schizophrenia and tried to discuss the disease with him. I was curious regarding any other Schizophrenic symptoms Tom suffers from, but the documentary only focused on his auditory hallucinations and the voices he hears.

What makes this man brilliant is not only is outrageous talent for playing the trumpet, but also his ability to cope with a case of severe paranoia schizophrenia. It seemed that this clip was a way for the media to honor the musical talent of Tom while examining the traumatic effects of schizophrenia. It was an inside look to his everyday living, and what those around him had to deal with as well. It was somewhat awkward, and really uncomfortable to watch Tom experience his episodes; as a viewer I felt it was invasive and far too uncomfortable to observe such a personal thing. But it’s the fact that this is a disorder that makes it such an awkward thing to watch; I felt sorry for him and what he had to go through. If it was an expose on his private life that dealt with things he could have controlled (i.e. an affair or something) then I would not have felt so wrong for watching. I didn’t feel as though this clip misrepresented the disorder by any means, and the fact that they chose to highlight someone who has such a severe case and who has such an extreme, creative talent definitely helped for that “shock” effect. As an audience, we were able to witness a disturbing scene: Tom experiencing auditory hallucinations during an interview and when he stopped playing the trumpet. He had trouble speaking and seemed to lose some abilities that should be quite natural, meaning he is dealing with negative symptoms (losing ability to speak properly) as well as positive symptoms (the addiction of hallucinations) that are common in schizophrenia cases. But I honestly think there was something so significant and touching about portraying an extreme psychological disorder that is tormenting such a brilliant, creative mind. The two elements positioned next to each other does make for an intriguing media story.