The Curious Contradiction of Halloween

Tonight I drove through the streets of my neighborhood.

In my rear-view mirror, a driver followed close behind. Their face was wrapped in bandages, only their eyes visible. Blood appeared to spill from their mouth.

Along the footpaths, crowds gathered. Families, teenagers, and small children wandered from house to house. Some were draped in ghostly white sheets, others painted as skeletons. Dark hollows surrounded their eyes. Bloodstains decorated clothing. Missing limbs, plastic axes, giant spiders, and elaborate costumes were proudly displayed as they moved through the streets.

Front lawns had transformed into graveyards. Hands appeared to reach from beneath the grass. Cobwebs tangled through hedges. Pumpkins glowed with menacing grins. Young children knocked on strangers' doors, eagerly accepting handfuls of sweets.

And I couldn't help but consider the irony.

Because every week, as an art therapist, I sit with children whose lives are shaped by fear.

I meet children who are frightened of the dark. Children who lie awake imagining what might be hiding in the shadows. Children who wake from nightmares and run into their parents' rooms. Children carrying grief they do not yet have the words to explain. Children whose nervous systems become overwhelmed by the things they have seen, heard, or imagined.

Every day I am asked how to help children feel safer. How to settle anxious minds. How to calm overstimulated nervous systems. How to help little bodies find enough peace to fall asleep at night.

Yet for one night every year, it seems we collectively forget.

Suddenly darkness becomes entertainment. Fear becomes festivity. Death becomes decoration. The gory becomes artistic. The frightening becomes fun. Entire communities transform into immersive experiences built around the very things many children spend the other 364 days of the year trying to make sense of.

Then there are the haunted houses, the jump scares, and the rush of adrenaline.

The racing heart.

The sudden gasp.

The shaky legs.

The surge of energy through the body.

It sounds remarkably familiar.

In many ways, it sounds a lot like anxiety.

Anxiety packaged up in novelty. Wrapped in sparkly costumes and colourful decorations. Served alongside chocolate bars and buckets of lollies.

Yet perhaps that is only part of the story.

Because as an artist, I understand the appeal.

Humans have always used creativity to engage with the things that scare us. We tell stories about monsters. We paint them. Dress up as them. Laugh at them. Turn them into characters we can control.

Halloween is, in many ways, creativity at its most extravagant. Months of sewing, crafting, building, painting, designing, imagining, and transforming. People creating worlds that do not exist. Children experimenting with identity. Families engaging in collective storytelling.

And that sounds familiar too.

It sounds a little bit like art therapy.

Which leaves me wondering: what exactly are we doing when we celebrate Halloween?

Are we playing with fear in a way that helps us master it? Are we rehearsing bravery? Are we experimenting with the unknown from a place of safety?

Or do we sometimes forget that the fears we are recreating for fun are very real for some children?

Because monsters and ghosts occupy a unique place in childhood.

Children's brains are designed for imagination. They are explorers, creators, inventors, and storytellers. Their capacity to imagine is vast and beautiful.

It is also the reason a shadow on the wall can become a figure standing in the corner. A curtain moving in a breeze can become something lurking behind the window. The creak of an old house can become footsteps. The howl of the wind can become a ghost.

As adults, we have decades of experience helping us interpret what we see and hear. We know that the curtain is moving because of a draft, that the creaky floorboards belong to an old house settling in the cool of the evening, that the strange shape on the wall is merely a shadow cast by passing headlights. Children are still building that framework.

Their fears may not be rational, but they are absolutely real.

And when a child whispers, "I'm scared of monsters," and we respond with, "Don't be silly, monsters aren't real," we rarely eliminate the fear.

What we often eliminate is the conversation.

The fear remains. The child simply learns not to bring it to us.

What children need is not necessarily reassurance that there is nothing to fear. They need confidence that they can cope when fear shows up. They need someone willing to enter their imaginative world and help them become the hero of the story.

That is why I created Monster Spray.

Not because I believe monsters exist.

But because fear does.

Monster Spray is really just a playful bridge between imagination and courage. A way of saying, "I can see that this feels real to you." A way of helping children discover that they already have what they need to face scary things.

Let's figure out together how brave, capable, and resourceful you already are.

And maybe that is what I find most fascinating about Halloween.

For much of the year, we dismiss children's fears of ghosts and monsters as nonsense. Yet every October, millions of adults enthusiastically decorate their homes with the very things children have been afraid of all along.

It is a curious contradiction.

One that reminds me that imagination is powerful.

Powerful enough to create fear.

Powerful enough to create art.

And, when nurtured well, powerful enough to help children overcome both.

x Rebecca Iona

Registered Clinical Creative Arts Therapist