The portrayal of therapists in the media has always been fascinating to me. On one hand, I see it as a reflection of how well we, as behavioral health professionals, are (or aren't) marketing ourselves. When therapy is misunderstood or reduced to clichés, it signals that we still have work to do in advocating for our profession and communicating the true depth of what we offer. At the same time, media can be a surprising barometer for how far the field has come. I love when a character casually uses body-positive language, talks about self-compassion, or references exposure therapy—those buzzwords tell me that some writer probably had a good experience in the therapy room. It’s encouraging to see those moments woven into stories.

But then there’s the flip side- the absolute absurdity that Halloween can bring. This is the time of year when therapists in movies or shows become hilariously off-base: spooky, sinister, clueless, or completely terrifying. So in the spirit of spooky season, let's have a laugh, or a shiver, and take a look at four Halloween films and their portrayal of behavioral health providers. (And warning, there are spoilers included below!)

1. Casper (1995): The Ghost Therapist Who Got Too Close
Let’s kick things off with a beloved 90s Halloween classic: Casper. In this film, we meet Kat, a high school student whose mother has recently passed away. Her father, Dr. James Harvey, is a psychiatrist who—grief-stricken after his wife’s death—makes a rather dramatic pivot in his practice: he begins treating ghosts.

Dr. Harvey moves into a haunted mansion with his daughter and his new clients, the mischievous ghost trio: Stinky, Stretch, and Fatso. In the case of Dr. Harvey, there appear to be minimal boundaries. He dines with his ghostly patients. Lives with them, and even goes out drinking with spectors. Unsurprisingly, this all ends poorly; after a night of ghostly revelry, Dr. Harvey drunkenly stumbles into an open sewer hole and dies. Luckily, thanks to a resurrection machine, he’s brought back to life and reunited with Kat.

Whether or not he made therapeutic progress with his ghostly patients remains unclear—but he is rewarded with a fleeting, emotional visit from his deceased wife, who is now an angel.

2. Wednesday (2022): Therapy as Punishment?
Next up is the more recent TV show, Wednesday. After a particularly creative act of revenge involving a school bully and a pool full of piranhas, Wednesday Addams is expelled. The only school willing to accept her does so on one condition: she must attend therapy with Dr. Valerie Kinbott.

From their very first session, Dr. Kinbott and Wednesday are visually and emotionally at odds—Kinbott is dressed in pristine white, while Wednesday is, of course, clad in black. Rather than building rapport, their sessions become a battleground. Wednesday frequently escapes (or attempts to), and their interactions feel more like a power struggle than a therapeutic alliance. One exchange sums up their dynamic perfectly. When Dr. Kinbott encourages her to open up emotionally, Wednesday deadpans: “Emotions are a gateway trait. They lead to feelings, which lead to tears. I don’t do tears.”

Their relationship never evolves beyond this standoff. In a twist of dark irony, Wednesday later accuses Dr. Kinbott of being a werewolf—only for Kinbott to end up the victim of one herself.

3. Get Out (2017): The Therapist IS the Villian
In Get Out, the therapist, or psychiatrist in this case, is Missy Armitage, the mother of the protagonist's girlfriend—and she’s a chilling twist on therapy. Under the guise of offering help, she uses hypnosis not to heal, but to control, trapping her racially motivated victims in the terrifying "Sunken Place." Missy weaponizes therapeutic tools to strip people of their autonomy, turning the trust typically associated with mental health professionals into something sinister.

4. The Sixth Sense (1999): The Therapist Who Didn’t Know He Was Dead
Of course, no list would be complete without the ultimate spooky therapist: Dr. Malcolm Crowe from The Sixth Sense. This child psychologist dedicates himself to helping a troubled young boy, Cole, who claims to see dead people. Throughout the film, we watch Dr. Crowe try to determine whether Cole is experiencing severe mental illness or something more supernatural. In one of the most iconic plot twists in film history, we discover that Dr. Crowe is actually dead—and his patient Cole, has been helping him, Dr. Crowe, come to terms with his own death all along.

The opinions in CDP Staff Perspective blogs are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science or the Department of War.

Amanda McCabe, Psy.D., is a Military Mental Health Psychologist with the Consortium for Defense Psychology (CDP) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. In this capacity, she develops and presents trainings on a variety of evidence-based therapies. Prior to the CDP, Dr. McCabe served as a clinical psychologist in the Army from 2013 to 2024.