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The One Where Phoebe Had Schizophrenia

Vasudha Bedi 


“Smelly cat,  what are they feeding you? 
Smelly cat, smelly cat, it’s not your fault.” 

This song invariably brings to mind the wacky and beloved F.R.I.E.N.D.S character, Phoebe Buffay, whose witty one-liners, songs, ideas, and habits touch the heart. The naïve innocence that underlies every act is what makes her the adorably goofy character everyone loves. While her antics crack us up, they could be an indication of Schizotypal Personality Disorder (S.P.D.). This post aims to look at her actions through the lens of the criteria for S.P.D. as laid out in DSM-5. 

According to the criteria, people diagnosed with S.P.D. exhibit odd and unusual behaviour, hold bizarre ideas and beliefs and may show paranoia, among other symptoms (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). People with S.P.D. typically don’t experience hallucinations, and if they do, they are not as intense or frequent as in Schizophrenia (Smith, 2018). Auditory hallucinations, defined as "perceptual experiences that occur in the absence of a triggering external sensory stimulus," are often experienced in the form of someone talking to the patient (Hugdah, et al., 2008). In the episode “The One Where Emma Cries,” Phoebe tells Monika that — in the silence that follows Emma’s emotional outburst — she can “hear the voices in her head again” (Crane & Burrows, 2002). It is interesting to note her use of the word “again” since it implies that this is a recurring phenomenon and also one that doesn’t receive any attention from her friends since Monica simply shrugs it off. 

Another symptom which Phoebe, like patients with S.P.D., often displays is odd behaviour and speech. These symptoms fall under the broad banner of disorganisation in the Disorganisation Trifactor Model of S.P.D, which “fits best with satisfactory CFI, NFI, TLI, A.I.C. and R.M.S.E.A. indices” (Reynolds, Raine, Mellingen, Venables, & Mednick, 2000). She exhibits her oddity when, in the episode “The One With Phoebe’s Rats,” she not only decides to take care of a dead rat’s babies — even going as far as taking them to a party — but also names the dead rat  Bob for whom she often put out food. In “The One With Ross’ Sandwich,” Phoebe admits to having stabbed a cop who later goes on to reveal her colourful criminal past. Her odd behaviour is compounded by the existence of Regina Phalange, the alternate persona she makes up for herself and uses multiple times across seasons as Ross’ physician, Joey’s agent, and Joey’s French sister. Phoebe also shows signs of neologism, which, according to the term poiesis coined by Forrest, is the “ordering of language in any way to lend authority to wish fulfilling statements which are thought thereby to be fulfilled” (LeVine & Conrad, 2016). While ‘phalange’ served as her alternate persona, it was also used as a utility word. Other words coined by her included Flimby’s, which she substituted for the names of places she couldn’t remember. She also came up with the word ‘Frienaissance’ to describe the chance of renewing an old friendship. This follows Forrest’s neologisms mechanism of suffix and prefix addition amongst others like compound formation, echoic phenomena, polysemy of roots, and metaphor (LeVine & Conrad, 2016). 

Another criterion of S.P.D. is Cognitive-Perceptual Dysfunction, which includes magical thinking, unusual ideas, and paranoid ideation (Reynolds, Raine, Mellingen, Venables, & Mednick, 2000). It overlaps with the third aspect of Interpersonal Deficits in the sphere of paranoid ideation. Phoebe shows signs of these in “The One With The Cat,” where she convinces herself that a stray cat is a reincarnation of her deceased mother. In “The One With The Lesbian Wedding,” Phoebe believes that she is possessed by the spirit of an 82-year-old woman who has unfinished business while, in “The One With All The Thanksgivings,” she reveals that she possessed the same look in at least two of her previous lives. She also believes Albert Einstein to be her grandfather in “The One With Phoebe’s Dad.” A running theme in the show is the existence of her roommate Denise who nobody has ever seen. The only problem that arises is that this contradicts her claims of living alone. Her paranoia comes to the fore when in “The One With The Fertility Test,” she claims that the spa she works at is rigged with microphones. 

Phoebe’s family background makes her an ideal candidate for having a psychological disorder. Her unconventional childhood characterised by an absentee father, an adoptive mother who commits suicide, and a childhood spent on the streets of New York plays an imperative role in shaping her eccentric character. According to a study, “a number of forms of psychological trauma and chronic stress have been associated with S.P.D.” (Rosell, Futterman, McMaster, & Siever, 2014). It is, thus, very likely that Phoebe’s eccentricities were often influenced by her mild S.P.D. rather than her attempt at being humourous.



References: 

Adcock, K. (2016, April ). The Best Made-Up Words from “Friends” That Should Definitely Be Included in the Dictionary. Retrieved from https://voolas.com/the-best-fake-words-from-friends-that-we-still-use-today/

Crane, D. (Producer). (1992). F.R.I.E.N.D.S [Television series]. Warner Bros. Studio, CA: National Broadcasting Company.

Hugdah, K., Løberg, E.-M., Specht, K., Steen, V. M., Wageningen, H. v., & Jørgensen, H. A. (2008, March). Auditory Hallucinations in Schizophrenia: The Role of Cognitive, Brain Structural and Genetic Disturbances in the Left Temporal Lobe. Retrieved from NCBI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2525988/

Johnson, K. (n.d.). Schizophrenia. Retrieved from Medium : https://medium.com/behind-the-disorders/schizophrenia-9b971ab5b5e0

LeVine, W. R., & Conrad, R. L. (2016). The Classification of Schizophrenic Neologisms. Psychiatry.
Phoebe Buffay . (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.douban.com/group/topic/9972627/

Reynolds, C. A., Raine, A., Mellingen, K., Venables, P. H., & Mednick, S. A. (2000). Three^Factor Model of Schizotypal Personality: Invariance Across Culture, Gender, Religious Affiliation, Family Adversity, and Psychopathology. Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Rosell, D. R., Futterman, S. E., McMaster, A., & Siever, L. J. (2014). Schizotypal Personality Disorder: A Current Review. Current Psychiatry Reports.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder. (n.d.). Retrieved from Psychology Today : https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/conditions/schizotypal-personality-disorder

Smith, K. (2018, November ). Schizotypal Personality Disorder. Retrieved from Psycom: https://www.psycom.net/schizotypal-personality-disorder

Yasharoff, H. (2018, July). Retrieved from USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2018/07/29/happy-birthday-lisa-kudrow-55-best-phoebe-buffay-quotes/825874002/

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.psi.uba.ar/academica/carrerasdegrado/psicologia/sitios_catedras/practicas_profesionales/820_clinica_tr_personalidad_psicosis/material/dsm.pdf

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