Why Halloween Can Be Therapeutic
Halloween’s invitation to try on another character can make room for play, imagination, and relief from ordinary roles. This short essay also meets the overwhelm of a troubled world with compassion, naming fear and sadness as understandable responses and affirming the importance of finding support.
Costume, Play, and Possibility
With Halloween just around the corner, I got to thinking about why I, as a therapist, love this holiday so much.
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I love it because, let’s face it, seeing my Facebook and Instagram feeds flooded with kids in their costumes is adorable.
I also love it because the roots of the holiday lie in the ancient Pagan festival Samhain in which the Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to both placate and scare off the malevolent spirits and ghosts that were be walking the Earth (given that the veils between worlds were thinner at that time of year).
Imagine that, an ancient party to placate and protect , pretty interesting!
But mostly I love Halloween because of a modern-day concept it champions , costuming and letting yourself be a different character for one night , is, to my mind as a therapist, therapeutic and something we could all stand to learn and benefit from more.
Role experimentation is the chance to temporarily try on a different way of presenting, expressing, or imagining yourself.
In plain terms: a costume can give you room to play with a side of yourself that everyday expectations do not always make space for.
Keep reading about what I see as the “therapeutic” aspect of Halloween and, when we weave this more into our lives, how we can benefit psychologically.
Beyond that, there is the state of the world outside of our California borders: A horrific massacre just to our East in Las Vegas, hurricanes and tropical storms devastating our Southern friends, a President picking fights with Puerto Rico and non-violent NFL protesters… The list goes on.
In times like these, it can feel like the world is ending.
The challenge of our personal lives coupled with the challenge of what’s unfolding on a local, state, national, and global scale can, at times, simply feel overwhelming.
““The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.””
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, psychiatrist and author
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
If you’ve been struggling in these past few weeks, you’re not alone.
Feeling sad, scared, overwhelmed, and anxious about what’s happening in the world are all appropriate responses to what’s unfolding.
Emotional overwhelm is the experience of feeling that the amount or intensity of what you are carrying exceeds your current capacity to process it.
In plain terms: when personal and world events arrive all at once, feeling scared or devastated can be an understandable response rather than something you should simply push through.
And yet, it’s really hard to feel this way, isn’t it?
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
― Haruki Murakami
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver
If you’re feeling lost, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, if you’re feeling devastated, if you’re feeling afraid for the state of the world, I think that, in this little book, you’ll find some solid ground a bit of a light to illuminate the darkness.
No matter who you are and where you are in the world right now, I truly hope it feels helpful to you and that you will get the support you need from it.
Q: Why can Halloween feel therapeutic?
A: The essay sees costuming and becoming a different character for a night as a playful practice with psychological value.
Q: Is it normal to feel overwhelmed by world events?
A: Yes. The essay names sadness, fear, anxiety, and overwhelm as appropriate responses to what is unfolding.
Q: What is role experimentation?
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A: It is the chance to temporarily explore a different way of expressing or imagining yourself, which a costume can support.
Q: What does emotional overwhelm mean?
A: It is the sense that the intensity of what you are carrying exceeds your current capacity to process it.
Q: What should I do when I feel overwhelmed?
A: The essay emphasizes that you are not alone and encourages finding the support you need.
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Annie Wright, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist · Relational Trauma Specialist · Author, W.W. Norton 2027
“Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.”
Annie Wright is a licensed psychotherapist with 15,000+ clinical hours since 2013 and an EMDRIA Certified Therapist. She’s the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she successfully exited. She’s currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). Her expert commentary has appeared in Psychology Today, Forbes, Business Insider, NBC News, and The Information.
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Annie Wright, LMFT
LMFT · Relational Trauma Specialist · Author, W.W. Norton 2027
Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.
Annie Wright is an EMDR-certified licensed psychotherapist and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, and she's been in practice since 2013. Trained in EMDR, psychodynamic, and somatic modalities, she is licensed in 14 U.S. jurisdictions and registered to provide telehealth in Florida (California, Colorado (telehealth only), Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington). Annie works with driven and ambitious women from relational trauma backgrounds, and everything she writes about is field-tested across thousands of clinical sessions. She is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited, and is currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in USA Today, Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information.
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