True Crime Podcasts: Friend or Foe?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a serious true crime habit. What can I say? There are few things I love more than putting on an episode of Morbid, popping in my headphones, and cleaning my house from top to bottom. True crime stories, for me, turn a chore into recreation.

However. . . In addition to being a true crime enthusiast, I’m also a therapist who specializes in trauma. And because of this, my spidey sense pings every time I listen to a gruesome crime saga and feel unmistakable pleasure.

What is going on here? And is there reason for concern?

By and large, true crime is a genre consumed by women. Likewise, the stories most frequently told have female victims, in part because women are more likely to be victims of domestic and sex-related crimes, including homicide. According to Amanda Vicary, Professor of Social Psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University and expert on social psychology in crime and media use, women flock to true crime for a reason.

“My thinking is that fear is leading women, even subconsciously, to be interested in true crime, because they want to learn how to prevent it,” Vicary reports in Forbes.

Georgia Hardstark, founder and star of the blockbuster true crime podcast My Favorite Murder, echoes this sentiment in the series’ third episode, when she excitedly shouts: “Tell me everything so I can avoid it!”

If Vicory is right about this, then the fear that drives us to these shows only increases as we listen. We’re creatures of empathy and when we hear of danger, our bodies respond accordingly, even when we’re not the one at risk. As a result, the body’s stress response becomes active, releasing hormones that impact heart rate, breathing, pupil dilation, blood flow to major organs, glucose levels and digestion.

These changes are the flight or fight response at work preparing us to defend ourselves. In small doses, this response is healthy – it’s designed to protect us. But when it is chronically activated, either directly through one’s own traumas or vicariously through exposure to other people’s traumas (aka binging true crime), it takes a toll on the body. Studies have linked increased sympathetic nervous system activity to cardiovascular disease, obesity, sleep difficulty, depression and anxiety.

So it seems the drive to keep ourselves safe propels our true crime interests, even when it carries the risk of having the opposite effect.

 But how do we account for the pleasure we take from these stories?

Humans are creatures that love a good mystery. It’s fun to solve a puzzle! And for those of us psychologically-minded folk, trying to understand deviant human behavior is part of the thrill.

But here again, trauma complicates the picture. In times of high stress, the brain releases endorphins, natural opioids that lessen the sensation of pain and anxiety and trigger positive feelings. This is helpful to us during a trauma. Endorphins provide a buffer from acute suffering. But the brain is a learning machine, and like Pavlov’s dogs, it will pair the stress stimulus (fear) with the reward (feel-good endorphins) even when the original trauma has passed.

So if you’re a trauma survivor and listen to a true crime podcast, your brain is already primed to get a hit of endorphins when fear – even subtle, subconscious fear – begins to circulate in your system. These feel-good chemicals heighten the pleasure of a murder mystery, but only because the listener’s own actual traumas are getting re-evoked in her.

This suggests a healthy dose of caution when it comes to consuming vicariously traumatizing content for the trauma survivor. In trauma recovery, we emphasize restoring a sense of abiding safety to the mind and body. Cuing danger in your system – even when it feels good – undermines this process and signals a continued need for hypervigilance to your nervous system.

But it’s not all bad news for you crime aficionados. While there is considerable risk involved in over-exposure to stories of violence, there’s a healthy reason we enjoy hearing stories from humanity’s dark heart. These stories give us access to essential aspects of human experience that are otherwise unsafe. Much like fairy tales, true crime allows us to grapple with issues of morality, personal agency, fate, luck and resilience from a safe distance.

True crime also carries the potential for community building. Facebook groups and live shows have become incredibly popular, drawing enormous crowds and allowing like-minded people to come together in spaces that promote values of empathy, empowerment, mental health positivity, and inclusivity.

So what is a true crime lover to do? In brief, use caution.

Pay attention to how your body feels while listening to or watching a show.

Do you notice any changes that might signal a threat response? Even super subtle signs? This is a sign your body is registering fear.

Do you feel a rush of excitement, or an urge to binge a string of episodes? This may be a signal that your fear is being masked by a feel-good endorphin release.

Avoid listening to content that mirrors your own traumas. These stories are most likely to set off your internal alarm bells and activate your sympathetic nervous system.

And if you’re not sure how to assess the impact of these shows on your mental health, talk to your therapist about it. That’s what we’re here for.