E7. Ghosts, Ghouls, & Scary Faces: The Psychology of Halloween (p. 1)

FRESH from the Therapy Couch: The Psychology of Halloween (p.1): Ghouls, Ghosts, & Scary Faces

Psychotherapy Adventurers: Gamer Girl Heather, Super Bookwork Sarah, & Squirrel Girl Debbie

Go to https://TherapyBites.myshopify.com & grab some A.R.T. LAB MERCH, specially designed to help keep this episode’s message “top of mind” in your life! Don’t forget friends & family members who could use a mental boost too.

Show Summary: In this episode . . .

TherapyBites Podcast is the home of the A.R.T. LAB which investigates, explores, & educates all about the neuroscience of Accurate, Realistic Thoughts & Life Affirming Beliefs.

Today we delve into the dark psychology of spooky season; the Psychology of Halloween.

Human brains are tasty treats for Zombies but they are also fertile fields for faces. There is even a specialized file Cabinent to catalog faces: The fusiform gyrus AKA fusiform facial gyrus (FFA). The problem with this area is it tends fall prey to false positives (e.g., “I KNOW THAT FACE” when you really don’t) rather than a false negative (e.g., “I DON’T KNOW YOU” when you really do). This leads us to often make premature judgments about faces, in terms of identify recognition, but also with interpreting facial configurations.

Halloween is a GREAT time to experiment with the strange facial recognition phenomena because of all the scary faces we can try out from our local Halloween Store. There are faces of princes & princesses but also faces of ghouls and trolls and things that suck your blood and eat your brain. Acquainting ourselves with some scary faces in a way that we KNOW we are safe can help us be more RESILIENT with real life scary faces. This can help us learn a boss is not going to eat our brain because their face is scrunched up like a paper wad. It can help us DE-catastrophize a spouse’s face when the spouse is not getting their way. We can learn that the driver next to us behaving poorly and ranting & raving is best let go their way without engaging. You can train your brain that scary faces don’t mean someone is toxic, controlling, manipulating, or gas-lighting. Only YOU have the power to control your own thoughts and reactions.

Spooky season is in full swing at the A.R.T. LAB with a host of hot air-filled zombies (two actually), a “Which Way Witch”, Frankenstein, Jr., spiders webs galore, & a host of ghosts. You can practice exposing yourself to scary faces too. Go ahead and attend a local Halloween Festival, church hayride, or trick-or-treating a safe street. Just stay away from Elm Street!!!

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USEFUL LINKS ON TODAY’S TOPIC:

Where does fear originate in the brain? A coordinate-based meta-analysis of explicit and implicit fear processing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117686

Unraveling the distributed neural code of facial identity through spatiotemporal pattern analysis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3116398/

Early (N170/M170) Face-Sensitivity Despite Right Lateral Occipital Brain Damage in Acquired Prosopagnosia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257870/

For the full show notes, visit https://therapybites.podbean.com/e/ghosts

FOR OUR READERS . . . GOBBLE UP THE WHOLE THING!!! (Transcript): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ogreCGIJOxq3goFFxxu6Fx42jHbMb0HzQZ3utMCcf2c/edit?usp=sharing