Existential Horror Can Help Add Structure
Trigger warnings: existential dread, anxiety, horror
Our uncuddly buddy Cthulhu doesn’t give af (about us). It was written into existence in 1928 by the insanely influential (and problematic, scared of everything) Howard Phillip (H.P.) Lovecraft. The Cthulhu mythos, which was heavily influenced by Robert W. Chambers book The King in Yellow, has it’s tentacles (see what I did there?) in most horror. There is a whole universe with several authors having contributed to it (August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long). Elder gods that live in planets, slumbering until they decide to wake up and take out whole dimensions and universes.
What are you going to do about it?
Probably not much.
And that is where the horror AND the beauty both lie. When faced with something so unimaginable, incomprehensible, overwhelming radical acceptance is the only choice. In a less threatening way (what’s the fun in that?) we get this feeling sometimes when we have peak experiences like looking at the night sky’s milky way or another nature even that reminds us that our mortality, in the grand scheme of things, is just a blip in the universe. And to some this has a calming affect, to others or at certain times that could also translate as high anxiety, even hysteria (looking into the void if you will).
Existential therapy deals with looking at the big questions. What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of death? Who are we and why do we do the things we do? What is existence? You get it or know enough to know we know nothing. Ahhhh! Cue the scream into the voids. How could this stuff add structure?
Here’s the thing: when we get confronted with these big questions, the ones that rearrange our priorities and to some extent our values (although Acceptance and Commitment Therapy believes we have around 5 core values that will never change. Do your own here: https://www.valuescardsort.com/) we can look at it as sink or swim, getting thrown into the deep end of the pool, or whatever saying you wish to insert here that makes the most sense to you. It does force a sort of life audit when we face our mortality, sometimes our biggest fears, potential or actual loss, or feeling like we’re at a crossroads in our life and knowing it’s about to change. There’s a sort of letting go although some get pushed more towards overly controlled behavior as well.
I am going to add my Existential Dread workbook here which is also under free resources in the resources tab.
A few good horror films that touch this include: The Colour Out of Space (2019), The Thing, Annihilation, among a lot of others. If you’re looking for book recommendations just Google Lovecraft or Cthulhu mythos and a ton will pop up; including a lot of Stephen King and other well-known horror authors. The tendrils of Chambers and Lovecraft run very, very deep in the horror world.
Works Cited
Miller, W, et al. PERSONAL VALUES Card Sort. 2001.
New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling. “The Existential Approach | the NSPC.” Nspc.org.uk, 2018, nspc.org.uk/about-the-school/the-existential-approach/. Accessed 28 Apr. 2026.
“The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers.” Project Gutenberg, July 2005, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8492.
“Values Card Sort.” Valuescardsort.com, 2024, www.valuescardsort.com/.
