What Happens in Scream Club Doesn't Stay in Scream Club

With a gut-wrenching wail that rippled from her body, Amber Walcker joined about a dozen screaming people in West Seattle who let their frustrations float away over the Puget Sound. It was just the start. Her stress from a recent job loss and raising two young children dissolved as it blended with the sound of lapping water, and a deep sense of calm descended. "I had such a sense of feeling grounded. In that same moment, all your senses are heightened," Walcker said. "From then on out, I was hooked." That day in September was the first meeting of Seattle's chapter of Scream Club, one of 17 chapters that have popped up in less than a year around the US, including in Austin, Texas; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Atlanta; Detroit; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, per the AP.

• Origins: The first chapter, in Chicago, began as a result of a couple's rough patch. Co-founders Manny Hernandez and Elena Soboleva had recently moved in together after dating long-distance for a year and a half. They were walking along Lake Michigan when Hernandez, a breath-work practitioner and men's coach, suggested they let out all their frustrations with a scream at the end of a pier. When they asked permission of the few people around, everyone decided to scream together, their raw emotion echoing over the water. "We looked at each other and said, 'This is probably something that we should start,'" Hernandez said.
• How it works: Scream Club meetings can be weekly or monthly, but they always take place in a park or near a body of water to minimize disturbance. Sessions typically begin with participants writing down the thing they want to release on biodegradable paper. That's followed by a series of collective deep breaths and vocal warmups, such as humming while breathing in and out. Then, everyone screams together three times, taking several deep breaths in between, and throws their paper into the water.
• Releasing the trauma: The Scream Club's techniques descend from primal scream therapy, a theory devised by Los Angeles psychoanalyst Arthur Janov in the 1960s. Janov believed childhood trauma created neuroses in adults, which could be treated by tapping into the pain and releasing it with screaming and crying under a therapist's supervision. Research in the decades since, however, hasn't found scream therapy to be an effective treatment for mental health conditions, per Harvard psychiatry professor Ashwini Nadkarni.
• Benefits: Still, screaming is a fantastic stress reliever. Nadkarni said the scream itself engages circuits in the amygdala and the hippocampus—"the oldest part of our brain" that's responsible for processing stress and emotion. Screaming also activates the sympathetic nervous system, or fight-or-flight stress response. Once the screaming stops, the parasympathetic system kicks in, which signals the body to rest. "It's the same cycle of regulation that happens when you exercise," she said. "Your heart's racing, you get short of breath, and then you relax and you feel that calm."
• Social aspect: Besides the physical release, the simple act of gathering to do something with others provides benefits. "The idea of people getting together to enhance community in ways that help them blow off some steam is incredible," she said.

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