Why does The Traitors make perfectly sane people unravel? A psychologist explains the show's mental impact
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Whenever my housemates and I discuss whether we would do well on The Traitors, we all come to the same conclusion: we just don’t have the mental strength. And can you blame us? Each week, we watch as soldiers, doctors and teachers — people who have endured some of the most stressful day jobs on planet earth — are pushed to the absolute brink of their sanity.
By the end of each episode they’re sat there, head in their hands, presenting a chalkboard with a scrawled misspelling of a name, apologising as if they’ve just ordered someone to be shot. Perfectly sane people have had full meltdowns at the roundtable. Last season, a sweet Scottish boy called Brian was driven to incoherent babbling when he was accused of being a Traitor, pleading with everyone to tell him whether he “am or amn’t” a Traitor. He was euthanised (banished) shortly after.
This season, a kind, unassuming doctor named Kas was targeted for his intelligence and ostracised by other contestants. They all clearly liked him, but couldn’t trust him, leaving poor Kas to feel maddened and alone in the castle. And it’s not just Kas. This year, more than ever, we have watched as the game fractured friendships, forged divisive cliques and fuelled emotionally fraught decision making. There have been more tears than anyone knows what to do with. You could drop a pin at that roundtable and someone would start crying.
To be clear, this isn’t your standard reality TV mental health crisis situation. Nearly every single contestant on The Traitors seems absolutely fine when they get out, waxing lyrical about how much fun they had, how they’d do it all again in a heartbeat. All the tension floods out of them the moment they stand and face that table, or sit and open that wax-sealed letter. By order of The Traitors, you can go back to being a normal person now.
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