What Lurks in October: The Psychology of Spooky Season

Fear has a shape. Anxiety doesn't.

Here's a distinction we talk about a lot in session: fear responds to a threat you can see. Anxiety is a response to a threat you can't quite name. Fear has a monster. Anxiety has a creak in the hallway and a mind that fills in the rest.

That may be why horror can feel strangely soothing to anxious people. A scary movie gives that vague dread a face, a plot, and, crucially, an ending. For 90 minutes, the danger is out there on the screen instead of in your head. Then the credits roll, and your nervous system gets to experience something it rarely does: the threat is over, and you survived.

Researchers have a name for this: recreational fear. In one study at a Danish haunted house, 110 visitors wore heart-rate monitors as they walked through. The most fun wasn't at the scariest moments. Enjoyment peaked in a middle zone: scared enough to feel it, not so scared that they were overwhelmed (Andersen et al., 2020). It's basically a Goldilocks rule for fear.

A related study found that horror fans reported less psychological distress during the early COVID-19 pandemic than non-fans (PsyPost summary). One theory is that frightening stories let us rehearse coping in a low-stakes setting. That's not so different from what exposure work in therapy does on purpose: practice tolerating discomfort, a little at a time, until it loses its grip.

One important caveat from the lead researcher: if horror isn't your thing, don't force it. Pushing past your Goldilocks zone just makes it a bad night.

The season of thin veils

Many cultures treat late October and early November as a time when the boundary between the living and the dead grows thin. Samhain, All Souls' Day, and Día de los Muertos all make room for the people we've lost.

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, grief certainly does. Anniversaries, falling leaves, and the first cold snap can bring back loss we thought we'd processed. If you feel unexpectedly tender this time of year, that's not a setback. It's your mind marking the season. Some of the healthiest grief rituals in the world happen right now: setting a place at the table, cooking a loved one's recipe, telling their stories out loud. You're allowed to borrow them.

The masks we wear all year

Halloween is the one night we're encouraged to become someone else. There's real psychological play in that: trying on boldness, silliness, or menace and seeing how it fits.

It's also a good moment to notice the masks you wear the other 364 days. The "I'm fine" at work. The always-capable parent. The friend who never needs anything. Many of the people we see in counseling are exhausted not by their problems, but by the effort of hiding them. A question worth sitting with this month: when you take off your costume at the end of the night, which mask is still on?

The light is leaving

In the Carolinas, we lose close to two minutes of daylight every day this time of year, and the clocks fall back on Sunday, November 1. Suddenly you're driving home in the dark.

For many people, that shift shows up as lower energy, heavier sleep, cravings for carbs, and a mood that's hard to lift. For some, it becomes Seasonal Affective Disorder, a form of depression with a seasonal pattern. If your fall slump shows up on schedule every year, that pattern is useful information, not a character flaw. It's also very treatable.

Try this: name your monster

In narrative therapy, there's a technique called externalizing: treating a problem as something separate from you, rather than something you are. "I'm an anxious person" becomes "Anxiety has been showing up a lot lately." It sounds small. In practice, it can create just enough distance to fight back. Spooky season is the perfect excuse to try it.

1. Give it a name and a form. Is your worry a gremlin chattering at 2 a.m.? Is your low mood a fog that rolls in every November? Get specific. Draw it if you like.
2. Learn its habits. When does it show up? What does it whisper? ("You'll embarrass yourself." "Why bother?") Monsters are predictable once you study them.
3. Notice what it wants from you. Most monsters want you to avoid, isolate, or stay up scrolling. Knowing its goal makes it easier to refuse.
4. Find its weakness. In every horror movie, something works: daylight, a phone call to a friend, a walk, a deep breath, saying the fear out loud. Write down what has helped before.
5. Remember who's the main character. The monster is in your story. It doesn't get to write it.

This works with kids, too. A child who's "scared of everything" often does better fighting a "Worry Monster" than being told not to worry.

You don't have to face it alone

The best part of any haunted house is the person whose arm you grab in the dark. Hard seasons work the same way.

If your monster has been showing up more often than you'd like, whether it's anxiety, grief, a seasonal slump, or something you haven't named yet, Balanced Mind Counseling can help. We offer a warm, judgment-free space, in person and via telehealth. Reach out to schedule a session and get ahead of the season instead of bracing for it.

If you're in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any time.

Here's to a season with only the good kind of scary.

Sources

• Andersen, M. M., et al. (2020). Playing With Fear: A Field Study in Recreational Horror. Psychological Science, 31(12).
• Scrivner, C., et al. (2021). Pandemic Practice: Horror Fans and Morbidly Curious Individuals Are More Psychologically Resilient During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Summarized by PsyPost and KUNC.