The Psyching by Freida McFadden
🧠 The Psyching by Freida McFadden
Short. Creepy. Out-of-Print. And Weirdly Hilarious.
⭐️ 4 out of 5 stars
🩺 Back Before the Bestsellers… There Was The Psyching
Before Freida McFadden started giving us twisty thrillers that made us question everything from memory loss to motherhood, she wrote a bizarre little story during her medical residency called The Psyching. It’s only 27 pages long, it’s out of print, and Freida herself swore it would never be reprinted. Why? Because she “wasn’t proud of it.”
Naturally, that only made me want to read it more.
And let me tell you: The Psyching is unhinged in the best possible way.
🏥 The Setup: Welcome to the Psych Ward, Please Enjoy Your Doom
Our main character Wendy, a medical student, is on rotation at a creepy psych ward where, exactly 10 years ago, two med students and a resident psychiatrist were found dead. Apparently, the psychiatrist went full Shining—he killed the students and then himself. So, nothing to worry about!
Now it's Wendy’s turn, along with another med student named Danni, and a resident psychiatrist named Jack, who seems way too comfortable joking about triple homicides.
Oh, and he warns them to “never go into Room 237.”
Jack, buddy, have you ever even seen a horror movie? Now we have to go into Room 237.
😵💫 The Night Shift from Hell
As soon as the sun goes down, the place basically turns into a psych ward-themed escape room:
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A creepy pair of twins start wandering the hallways like they’ve been conjured from The Shining.
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A patient named Johnny roams around saying only one word: “lick.” And yes, he’s also trying to lick people. You can’t make this up.
Danni gets spooked and wonders aloud if “lick” is actually a warning—maybe it’s kill spelled backwards. Wendy rolls her eyes so hard they practically fall out. (Same, girl.)
🚪 The Forbidden Room (Because Of Course)
Then Danni disappears. Vanishes. Nowhere to be found.
With all the doors locked for the night, Wendy panics and finally decides to break the cardinal horror rule: she enters Room 237.
What does she find?
Oh, just a completely naked man slathered in condiments.
(Insert your own hot dog joke here.)
🔪 And Then Things Get… Murdery
Before Wendy can even wrap her brain around the naked ketchup man, Jack shows up—wielding a knife, confirming what we suspected all along: Jack is definitely not OK. And probably also the guy behind the past murders.
The story ends there. Because of course it does.
(What do you want for 27 pages, closure?)
💬 Final Thoughts: A Fever Dream of a Story
This wasn’t a typical Freida McFadden twist-fest, but I still had so much fun. It’s silly, unhinged, and reads like a script from a campy horror short film. There’s no grand surprise at the end—you kind of know Jack is the guy—but that’s part of its charm. You can almost feel Freida experimenting with voice and pacing here, and as a die-hard fan, I loved seeing where it all began.
📚 If You Loved This Short Story, Try These:
| 📖 Book Title | ✍️ Author | 🧠 Why You'll Like It |
|---|---|---|
| Ward D | Freida McFadden | A full-length remake of The Psyching, and 100x twistier. |
| The Housemaid | Freida McFadden | Her most popular thriller—and where her twists get WILD. |
| Final Girls | Riley Sager | Twisty and psychological with a horror slasher vibe. |
| Behind Her Eyes | Sarah Pinborough | An insane twist you will not see coming. |
🛒 Where to Buy
The Psyching is out of print, so unless you time travel or find it hiding in a library basement, you’re out of luck.
BUT—you can read the fully expanded and much-improved version in:
🛍 Ward D by Freida McFadden (Amazon)
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