Tricks and Treats for Psychiatry in This Halloween Season
Key Takeaways
- Halloween decorations and costumes have increased, possibly due to global tensions and psychological coping mechanisms.
- The book "Morbidly Curious" suggests learning about threats helps prepare for them, using scary media in exposure therapy.
As Halloween approaches, the rise in decorations and costumes reflects our cultural response to anxiety and societal challenges.
PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS
“What is happening to us is as serious as a guillotine. We must harness our best creative, humorous and frivolous selves in order to keep it from falling.” - Gary Shteyngart
As if that quote is not scary enough, there seem to be more scary things around us as Halloween approaches this year.
I do not know whether this has happened where you live, but there seems to be an obvious increase in Halloween front yard decorations in my Milwaukee, especially skeletons. Perhaps that has something to do with the wars that have been going on this year. Some media has mentioned “pumpkin mania,” almost as if the public has gone mentally overboard with Halloween. I have also heard more versions than I have in a long time of the “Monster Mash” 1962 hit song.
And costumes? They seem to be flying off the shelves. Many creative ones showed up at the “No Kings” rallies. In Chicago, the writer Gary Shteyngart based his New York Times guest essay for October 20 on what he saw at that rally in “The Rise of the Inflatable Chicken Resistance.”1 The first one he mentions was that of an inflatable shark costume with the accompanying sign of “Don’t Take Their Bait!”
Perhaps, then, it was serendipity that there was a recent review of the book, Morbidly Curious.2 The basic psychological point is that in order to prepare for a possible threat, learning about it helps. There is even a chapter of using scary media as a tool in exposure psychotherapy for anxiety.
Horror movies have doubled in movie attendance since 2020 and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic itself, with its invisible viral “monster.” Historically, mental illness has been so scary that it became stigmatized. Perhaps our fight and flight inborn response for perceived danger is why bad news usually gets more attention than good news.
Then on Monday, the Wall Street Journal’s Lifestyle section had at least 6 articles that featured some aspects of our increasing interest in lifestyle psychiatry that reflected tricks and treats in our field. Hence, next week we will begin a series on these examples at least through Halloween itself on October 31. That will be a treat for me since Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year. Then again, I just felt a surge of a little anxiety since some unanticipated tricks may happen along the way.
Boo!
Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.
References
1. Shteyngart G. The rise of the inflatable chicken resistance. New York Times. October 20, 2025. Accessed October 24, 2025.
2. Hughes EC. Why do we love spooky season? It’s in our genes! New York Times. October 16, 2025. Accessed October 24, 2025.
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