In this episode on The Witch (2015), I explore the psychological concept of scapegoating and how it can drive a woman straight to the devil. Hail Satan.

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Show Notes:

Join Illuminative Tarot for Working With Trauma to learn creative ways to work with tarot as a supportive partner in the healing process. 

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario), along with tarot, horror, and dreamwork services, but individually and through my group program, the Final Girls Club. 

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempo Mint.

How Robert Eggers Wove the Nightmares of The Witch Out of Historical Documents By Lauren Duca

Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed: Help and Hope for Adults in the Family Scapegoat Role by Rebecca C. Mandeville

The Portrait of The ‘Scapegoat Woman’ As Witch by Serap Yüzgüller Arsal and Seda Yavuz

In this episode on Companion (2025), I theorize about what new f@*%ed up attachment style could evolve out of our attempts to attach to AI companion bots. Lord save us.

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Show Notes:

Join Illuminative Tarot for Working With Trauma to learn creative ways to work with tarot as a supportive partner in the healing process. Presale pricing currently available.

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario), along with tarot, horror, and dreamwork services, but individually and through my group program, the Final Girls Club. 

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempo Mint.

Nguyen, C. Thi, Games: Agency As Art (New York, 2020; online edn, Oxford Academic, 23 Apr. 2020)

Attachment by John Bowlby

This episode explores The Shining (1980) and its depiction of the adverse psychological impacts of isolation and lack of community. Spoiler alert: it's bad.

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Show Notes:

Join Illuminative Tarot for Working With Trauma to learn creative ways to work with tarot as a supportive partner in the healing process. Presale pricing currently available.

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario), along with tarot, horror, and dreamwork services, but individually and through my group program, the Final Girls Club. 

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempo Mint.

A Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King 

Decolonizing Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies by Renee Linklater, Lewis Mehl-Madrona (Foreword)

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

This Could Be Your AI Robot Girlfriend — For $175,000 by Barry Collins 

This episode explores Nosferatu (2024) and its depiction of shame as a horrible, beautiful nightmare.

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Show Notes:

Join Illuminative Tarot for Working With Trauma to learn creative ways to work with tarot as a supportive partner in the healing process. Presale pricing currently available.

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario), along with tarot, horror, and dreamwork services, but individually and through my group program, the Final Girls Club. 

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempo Mint.

The Four Quadrant Model —  Narcissistic Overcompensation 

Life is hard! So I'm really glad that cozy horror movies like A Haunting in Venice exist to comfort us through times of hardship and winter frostbite.

In this episode, we explore A Haunting in Venice (2024) as a shining example of cozy horror, and why cozy horror is good for our mental health.

I also pull some tarot cards to try and make sense of why there is such divisive rhetoric in the horror community against cozy horror!

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Show Notes:

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario), along with tarot, horror, and dreamwork services, but individually and through my group program, the Final Girls Club. 

Send me some Ghoul Mail! I love hearing from you spooky ghouls! Want a chance to have your story read on a future episode of Mental Health is Horrifying? If you’d like to share what horror movies mean to you, how they have helped you with your mental health, or about a particular horror movie that you have thoughts and feelings about, send me some Ghoul Mail. 

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempo Mint.

Oster, Emily F., Witchcraft, Weather and Economic Growth in Renaissance Europe. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2004

About Agatha Christie 

Why Is Pandemic Fiction So Comforting Right Now? By By Kathryn VanArendonk in Vulture

What You Need To Know About Pluto in Aquarius from Chani

If there was a drug that would create a younger version of yourself, would you take it?

This episode looks at The Substance (2024) and its portrayal of death anxiety via our obsession with female youth and beauty.

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Show Notes:

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario), along with tarot, horror, and dreamwork services, but individually and through my group program, the Final Girls Club. Visit my website to learn more.

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempomint.

Taylor, J., Armes, G. Social comparison on Instagram, and its relationship with self-esteem and body-esteem. Discov Psychol 4, 126 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44202-024-00241-3 

 Interview With "The Substance" Director/Writer Coralie Fargeat, Next Best Picture Podcast

 ‘The Movie Is Fundamentally About the Violence of Control’: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat Talks The Substance By Elissa Suh

Someone on Reddit Made a chart of Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriends — and it seems his cut-off age is 25 by Tom Murray

As Norman Bates likes to say, a boy's best friend is his mother.

...Right?

This episode takes a look at the book The Hitchcock Hotel (2024) and horror classic Psycho (1960) in this maternal enmeshment extravaganza!

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

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Show Notes:

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario), along with tarot, horror, and dreamwork services, both individually and through my group program, the Final Girls Club.

This month's Final Girls Club feature workshop is Nightmare-morphosis. It's taking place  on November 28, and it’s a live online psychotherapeutic workshop, where final girls are invited to bring a nightmare of their choosing to work with. Using our creative capacities and active imaginations, we will safely re-enter and co-create with our dreamscapes to metamorphize the nightmare, reducing its emotional charge while introducing a more empowered, supportive narrative.

Register for Nightmare-morphosis and save 15% if you register before midnight on November 15 with code DREAMON. 

Send me some Ghoul Mail!

I love hearing from you spooky ghouls! Want a chance to have your story read on a future episode of Mental Health is Horrifying? If you’d like to share what horror movies mean to you, how they have helped you with your mental health, or about a particular horror movie that you have thoughts and feelings about, send me some Ghoul Mail.

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempomint.

The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel 

Hann-Morrison, D. (2012). Maternal Enmeshment: The Chosen Child. Sage Open, 2(4). 

Attachment in Psychotherapy by David J. Wallin

Stephanie Wrobel Discusses Her Inspiration for ‘The Hitchcock Hotel’ By Andy Burns

Dick Cavett interview with Alfred Hitchcock 

In this special BONUS Halloween episode, let’s explore Trick ‘r Treat (2007), and the importance of Halloween for your mental health.

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

Instagram: @mentalhealthishorrifying

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Show Notes:

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario) and specialize in grief and trauma.

This month in the Final Girls Club, check out Your Hallowed Halloween Kit. I created this kit as a way to help you slow down and appreciate this most sacred time in the wheel of the year, with Halloween rituals designed to support your mental health. From tarot spreads, dreamwork exercises, and an activity to help you find your monster movie soulmate as a portrait of your own psychic terrain – each ritual is informed by depth psychology and is designed to help you connect with your own depths, be intentional with the magic around you, and harness Halloween’s true meaning, legends, and traditions as a pathway back to yourself.

As a special treat for my hallowed listeners, save $5 when using code TRICKRTREAT.

Each month, Apple Podcasts selects podcasts to include as part of its curated feature section. And this month, Mental Health is Horrifying is featured under Spooky Stories. Thank you so much to Apple Podcasts for this feature, and for elevating spookiness as an art form. Check out my feature on the Apple Podcasts app under the Browse tab, and be sure to check out all the other deliciously spooky podcasts included in the section. 

Send me some Ghoul Mail!

I love hearing from you spooky ghouls! Want a chance to have your story read on a future episode of Mental Health is Horrifying? If you’d like to share what horror movies mean to you, how they have helped you with your mental health, or about a particular horror movie that you have thoughts and feelings about, send me some Ghoul Mail.

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempomint.

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Sources:

Halloween: Origins, Meaning & Traditions

History Extra podcast: Work-life balance: how our ancestors fought for free time

This special Halloween episode explores the absolute classic Halloween (1978) and its portrayal of Laurie Strode’s over-functioning anxiety in her pursuit to uphold the mantle of the perfect final girl. 

As a psychotherapist for final girls, this episode is a love letter to all of you.

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

Instagram: @mentalhealthishorrifying

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Show Notes:

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario), along with tarot, horror, and dreamwork services, but individually and through my group program, the Final Girls Club. This month's feature is Your Hallowed Halloween Kit.

Send me some Ghoul Mail!

I love hearing from you spooky ghouls! Want a chance to have your story read on a future episode of Mental Health is Horrifying? If you’d like to share what horror movies mean to you, how they have helped you with your mental health, or about a particular horror movie that you have thoughts and feelings about, send me some Ghoul Mail.

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempomint.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder in Women by Heather B. Howell, Olga Brawman-Mintzer, Jeannine Monnier, Kimberly A. Yonkers, Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Volume 24, Issue 1, 2001

I don’t know what the deal is with all of you who didn’t find Longlegs scary, because this movie straight up gave me intrusive thoughts! This episode talks about those thoughts, how I learned to challenge my Nicolas Cage-related intrusive thoughts, and how you can challenge yours too through cognitive strategies and (seemingly paradoxically) through horror. 

Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, Registered Psychotherapist and owner of Many Moons Therapy.

..............................................................

Show Notes:

Want to work together? I offer 1:1 psychotherapy (Ontario), along with tarot, horror, and dreamwork services, but individually and through my group program, the Final Girls Club. 

Send me some Ghoul Mail!

I love hearing from you spooky ghouls! Want a chance to have your story read on a future episode of Mental Health is Horrifying? If you’d like to share what horror movies mean to you, how they have helped you with your mental health, or about a particular horror movie that you have thoughts and feelings about, send me some Ghoul Mail.

Podcast artwork by Chloe Hurst at Contempomint.

Neuroanatomy, Parasympathetic Nervous System by Jacob Tindle and Prasanna Tadi in National Library of Medicine