About Psychological Genres
See examples on the Connect page. Psychological Thrillers and Suspense emphasize the unstable mental and emotional states of the protagonist which often make it hard for the reader to know for awhile what is going on. The protagonist is in great danger, and with Suspense, the readers know this better than the character does.
The antagonist deliberately impacts those states, making them get worse before they potentially resolve as the protagonist puts the pieces together and recovers normalcy. The lines are blurred between the protagonist and antagonist, normality and strangeness, hero and anti-hero.
Often a character who is close to the protagonist imposes his will on him through creating delusions, gaslighting him, for example. Often there is a mystery that must be solved, related to the mind as well as murder. Protagonists must use mental resources to win against the antagonists, who are many times parts of the protagonists.
The readers expect to deliciously struggle with bewilderment while focusing on the themes of reality, perceptions and identity, with profound philosophical implications. Tropes include claustrophobic spaces, being stuck, being confined to institutions, obsessions, shadows, complex old or futuristic buildings, doubles, mental illness, infiltration, phobias, puzzles, codes, sadism, dark sexuality, macabre motifs, secrets, mind control, passageways, betrayal, amnesia, isolation, inability to trust anyone and sudden reversals of who is the perceived friend and who the enemy. They often overlap with Conspiracy genres. Stream of consciousness is a common POV device.
Here are some of my bits about it:
Psychological Suspense and Psychological Thrillers
Psychological Suspense and Psychological Thrillers
Psychological Suspense as Multi-Faceted, Ambiguous Complexity of Life
Why Psychological Suspense?