Playing with the Darkness

As an artist and Creative Arts Therapist, I’m all for events that foster creative expression and allow us to sublimate our primal urges into something constructive. Halloween, with its opportunities to design crafty homemade costumes and temporarily escape into a fantasy world, is no exception.

But this year feels different. There is an influx of horrific, war-related news coming in daily, including descriptions and images of gruesome violence against women and children. Families whose children have been abducted or killed in combat are wading through unrelenting waves of grief and rage. Religiously-fueled hate crimes are spreading around the world like wildfire.

So, how do we approach this holiday that celebrates all that is primal, scary and grotesque when real life already contains enough horror, anxiety, and reminders of suffering as it is?

Personally, I am experiencing a kind of dissonance around the macabre/horror themes. Right now skeletons and bloody characters presented as lighthearted fun feels too triggering, too real. But I’m also aware of the importance of being able to “play” with the death anxiety we all share, especially in safe contexts. Although this is a universal, often unspoken fear that connects us all, naming it is completely taboo in our death-denying, youth-obsessed, toxic positivity culture. So instead, we avoid it altogether, relegate it to one holiday a year, or save it for funerals, news, and obituaries.

Author Ruth Soukup remarks, “Fear is a funny thing... The very instinct designed to protect us also holds us back.” Indeed, in small doses, leaning into our fears and being “counterphobic” can offer practice in diffusing and eventually overcoming them. This includes digging into aspects of ourselves that are less desirable or “unknown.” Drama therapy theory emphasizes the importance of role flexibility on mental health: the ability to wear many hats, evolve, and exercise many aspects of ourselves as opposed to staying stuck in one, fixed role. In a safe context like ongoing therapy or through one’s artistic practice, becoming acquainted with the “shadow side” or darkness within ourselves can be a vital part of both self discovery and healing. #halloween #currentevents #arttherapy #shadowside #deathanxiety

Post by Sharon Itkoff Nacache ATR-BC LCAT LPAT PMH-C

Pumpkin design by author’s son