“Evil” and “terrible” Halloween: how it is good for the psyche

“Scary, creepy”

The tradition of depicting someone evil and scary is actually much older than the Halloween holiday, which coincides with the eve of All Saints Day for Catholics and Protestants. And certainly we, not even knowing about Western traditions, ourselves had fun with something similar. Even in Soviet childhood, at the dawn of perestroika, we arranged a “panic room” at home, invented costumes of the “evil dead” from toilet paper and improvised materials, called the “queen of spades”. Looks like it, doesn’t it?

In many cultures, starting from primitive times, there were traditions that called on certain days or moments of life to paint faces and depict evil spirits. Ritual dances and various ceremonies, as a rule, were arranged so that the forces of darkness would help hunters or farmers, or at least not interfere with the normal life of the tribe.

Halloween came to us from another culture, but, as is often the case with holidays, it suddenly took root. Many children are happy to have an extra reason to dress up as a monster, zombie or vampire and scare each other or adults. Many films on this subject with charismatic negative characters provide food for the imagination and ideas for reincarnation.

Parental prejudice

“Our daughter is hyperactive, well, except that she doesn’t walk on the ceiling. Grandmothers say in unison that the girl needs to be calmer, they bought her a princess costume. And she made herself a witch outfit out of paper and blankets, took a mop and jumps around the house, happy, ”says Evgeny, 42 years old.

“Last Halloween, the kids and I carved pumpkins and prepared costumes. They wrapped themselves in bandages, drew scary faces and went to scare the husband’s relatives, portraying zombies. And relatives to us with lean faces said that it was not normal to dress up with all kinds of evil spirits, and I “spoiled” the children. My boys were upset, and I felt uncomfortable, ”says Irina, 38 years old.

Many opponents of such entertainment want only good. It seems to them that if they do not buy toy weapons for children and forbid portraying villains and monsters, this will help to cultivate a good and peaceful beginning in them.

Is this true from a scientific point of view? Quite the contrary, psychologists say.

Play villains to stay human

Voldemort, Sauron, witches or vampires – the images of villains go back to the most ancient archetypes, and temporary, conditional immersion in them gives children invaluable and useful experience. They meet with the inner darkness – with the evil that is in each of us. With a shadow that scares that we deny

No matter how much loving relatives would like to idealize their “bunnies” and “princesses”, everyone has negative feelings. And the better he knows how to notice, define and control them in himself, the more chances he has for a happy life as an emotionally healthy person.

Where to direct aggression, accumulated tension, primal impulses, breaking through the thin layer of the cortex (cerebral cortex) from the ancient brain of a reptile, which is responsible for higher mental activity? After all, you can’t beat your brother, bite your grandmother and take away a bright toy from a classmate in kindergarten. And constantly suppressing anger and other emotions that are uncomfortable for society is harmful to mental and physical health. How to be?

Just here, various events come to the rescue (and not only for children, but also for adults), at which it is allowed to scream, growl, twitch and make faces.

Children are well aware of the difference between conventionality and real life. And they join the games with pleasure, releasing aggression – and not even on their own behalf, but through their character. Arranging the battle of “Alien” against “Predator”, they learn to control anger and manifestations of cruelty.

“Be afraid, be sure to be afraid!”

Gurgen Khachaturian, psychotherapist

Halloween has analogues in many cultures – remember, for example, the traditional Slavic night on the eve of Ivan Kupala Day. And this holiday is of great importance for children’s and adolescent development. It allows you to experience fear.

Yes, on the eve of All Saints Day, all evil spirits come out: metaphorically, these are the “evil spirits” that live in the soul of every child. They grow with him and become a problem for an adult and his psychotherapist, if they are suppressed, driven deeper. So, dressing up as evil spirits, people do not celebrate the triumph of the forces of evil, but prove that they can be set free, and then defeated.

Whenever I talk to young parents and patients about the idea of ​​fear as such, I always remember Herbert Chesterton’s essay “Joyful Angel” with pleasure. It says that fear does not come from outside – from costumes or images. He lives in the depths of the human soul. And by nature, a child will always be afraid of evil spirits or, say, dragons. But the fairy tale will give him George the Victorious, who will slay this dragon.

Halloween allows a child to face the fear that lives inside through candy, fun, jokes. He knows for sure that the morning of All Saints’ Day will come, and evil spirits will be defeated again. It is very important for a child to understand this.

And adults also need to remember: there is no thesis “do not be afraid”, there is no thesis “you cannot be afraid”. On the contrary, be afraid, be sure to be afraid. There is nothing wrong with fear!

This is not a sign of pathology. Be afraid, but look for allies for yourself in this fear. Look for a way to laugh at fear – and then it will dissipate in the morning along with the “spirits of darkness” born in the darkness of the soul. Evil spirits will be expelled by the light forces of good.