About Dr. Amy Farrah-Fowler – The Character Of The Television Show The Big Bang Theory

Dr. Amy Farrah-Fowler, known from the hit television show, The Big Bang Theory, is one of the more minor characters of the show, but an intriguing character nonetheless. In the time that Amy has been on the show we have seen her character develop and have heard some of her back story, but we still do not fully know how or why she became the way that she is. Utilizing some of the information that she talks about on the show, and looking at her current behavior and personality traits, we can analyze why she acts the way that she does from the viewpoint of various psychological theorists. Specifically, we are going to analyze Dr. Amy Farrah-Fowler from the viewpoint of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy and Adlerian Therapy.

Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) was developed by Albert Ellis, who believed that people had the potential to be both rational and irrational, and that what a person thinks about their experiences is what causes their distress. Ellis’s beliefs led him to develop the ABCD model in REBT, which is a sequence of events that happens when thoughts, behaviors, and feelings occur simultaneously, resulting in a person developing beliefs. For Ellis, once a highly charged emotion (C) follows some form of adversity (A), an individual may blame the consequence on the adversity, when that person’s beliefs (B) created the emotions, resulting in the person’s distress, unless this is actively challenged (D).

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This pattern reinforces the individual’s irrational beliefs and continues the source of their distress. Ellis saw a person’s personality as developing mostly out of their biology and the social environment that the person is in. Each person has a temperament all of their own and Ellis viewed this as being biologically based and a balance between a person’s must haves and their would like to haves. Another point of distress in Ellis’s viewpoint is that individuals seek out approval and acceptance and if they do not get this. Applying the theories of REBT to Amy Farrah-Fowler should be done by showing how she has changed during her time on the show, as this type of treatment focuses on challenging irrational thoughts to help relieve distress. Amy is a Neuroscientist who made her first appearance on the show as a blind date of one of the main characters, Dr. Sheldon Cooper. She was at first robot like and wanted stated that she found relationships to be unnecessary.

She and Sheldon began spending more and more time together, enjoying each’s other company, and this meant that Amy was also spending time with other characters, including the female characters, Penny and Bernadette. The more time that Amy has spent around Penny, the more open she has become to relationships and changes in her life. Amy has sought to form a bond with Penny and has opened up about how she grew up and how she had no friends. During this time Amy has also desired to become more intimate with Sheldon, and her persistence and understanding of him has led to a huge shift in how both of the characters view intimacy and relationships.

Amy has a strong desire to be accepted and having spent the majority of her life having no friends and not being accepted by peer groups, she at first comes across as needy and lacking an understanding of personal boundaries. One of the main focal points of REBT is irrational thought patterns and changing these, which we see with Amy as her character develops. Originally Amy was stand-offish, believing herself to be boring, adding nothing of interest to conversations, and often making comments about things not being cruel jokes on her when she is included in activities. This may indicate that because of things that have happened to her she has an irrational belief that she is not worthy of human interaction and relationships, which could be why she originally claims to find relationships unnecessary.

Amy’s character development is a strong indicator of her irrational thoughts being challenged. Adlerian Therapy slightly differs from REBT and as such we can evaluate Dr. Amy Farrah-Fowler in an alternate way. Alfred Adler worked with Sigmund Freud and ended up leaving as he did not agree with many of Freud’s ideas. Adler believed that people should be viewed as complete individuals, which he referred to as holism. Adler also placed great value on how a person perceived their situation, not just how it actually was, and believed that people based their choices on many different variables and he wanted to help people realize they could make different choices. Adler believed that there are three main tasks in life, which are love, community, and work, and that people are motivated to improve their situations.

He also viewed people as unique individuals and not just a general disorder, wanting to focus on what purpose emotions serve in a person’s life. Adler was overall more focused on how person utilizes their personality, temperament, and other such factors, in order to make a place for themselves within their social world. Putting all of Adler’s theories into play when looking at Amy can be very interesting. If there are three main tasks to life, then when Amy first came onto the show she was only succeeding at one, work. As she has grown she has improved both her love and community tasks, gaining friends, and a romantic partner. A good example of Amy perceiving her situation as different than it actually is, is with her friendship with Penny.

For a very long Penny did not actually like Amy, although she perceived herself as Penny’s best friend, and eventually she actually did become Penny’s best friend. Amy also has stuck with her relationship with Sheldon for a very long time as she was motivated to improve her relationship with him. Amy is an only child, she enjoys rather low energy activities, comes from a very strict family, with strong beliefs, and appears to be the only child of a single mother, which all explains a lot in regards to her seeming preference for activities that do not require others and her struggle to obtain and maintain friendships. Amy often makes remarks about her childhood being lonely and that her mother would tell her she could not do things due to it being for whores, or locking her in the shame closet, which could explain why she does not really have a relationship with her mother as an adult.

In Adlerian Therapy the focus is on modifying lifestyles to reflect a prosocial view of self and others. As Amy has become a part of the social group in the show, her lifestyle and views have changed to grow with her. Amy originally stated that she had no desire for romantic relationships and that she found physical touch to be repulsive. She also had never drank, did not have pierced ears, and appeared to be extremely sheltered. As the show has progressed, Amy has changed significantly, having a sexual relationship with Sheldon, moving in with him and getting engaged, drinking with her friends frequently, getting her ears pierced, and becoming more and more social.

Considering the different viewpoints of Adlerian Therapy and REBT in regards to this one specific character, there appear to be overlapping theories. The purpose of both types of therapy is to help the client overcome what is considered to be their problems, with this character it is her lack of relationships, both romantic and non-romantic. We could go back and look closely at Amy’s childhood in order to understand why she is the way that she is in order to help her further, or we could simply look at her current behavior in an effort to challenge her irrational thoughts and beliefs. Both of these viewpoints could work depending upon the approach and how much Amy wants to discuss her past in reference to her current issues. 

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