There are a lot of things in the field of psychology that I think are... less than scientific: rebirthing, vegetotherapy and most anything proposed by Freud all come to mind. One thing that used to be on the list, but isn't anymore is primal scream therapy. That would be the therapy that found favor with with psychotherapists in the early 1970s. The idea was that adults who have problems are really just upset about things that happened in their childhood and if they scream it out, everything will be unicorns and rainbows for the rest of their life. No. Wait. Sorry. I meant for the rest of the week until their next appointment. Turns out that there may be some merit to that lovely little idea.
Have you ever been so mad you could scream? Have you ever actually done it? If you're me then the answers are yes and no, in that order. Largely because the same thing that gets me so riled so easily is the thing that keeps me from screaming about it. I believe I may have mentioned this before, but I am wound like a top. It is not possible to be that uptight and just... scream it out. Mostly I just imagine the awkward police visit that would cause.
Officer: "We got a report of a woman screaming at your address. Is everything ok?"
Me: "Oh yeah, Officer. Everything's fine. I was just working through the loss of my puppy when I was seven. No big deal."
Turns out though, I'm not the only one who sometimes just wishes I could let it out. To that end, students at UofM Law have been organizing a pre-finals scream the night before exams begin for a couple of terms now. I generally haven't participated because my finals strategy revolves more around holding up in my house with mini powdered donuts, pop, pajamas and several hours of DVRed shows for background noise. Its a system that works. I see no reason to mess with it. This year though, I had the dual challenges of not flunking out of law school and doing something new every day.
When I saw the e-mail advertising the scream, I thought about my life and realized that I have literally never screamed at the top of my lungs. I've yelled. I've spoken sternly. I've raised my voice. I've made the loudest noise I possibly could, but it wasn't just a scream. I used my words. Like a big girl. Until the night before finals this year, I had never just let one rip as loud as I could with no reason besides the scream itself. Such a momentous event calls for documentation. The point is the audio, not the video so... be gentle.
Blogger's First Primal Scream
I think it goes without saying that I was slightly less into it than shirtless guy. Also, my throat hurt. All that aside though, I did come to understand why that therapy was considered a good idea. All the psycho-babble about releasing yourself from your childhood traumas is coo-coo for cocoa puffs, but the therapy itself suddenly made sense. As a time tested, reality proven control freak... I deeply, passionately, adored screaming at the top of my lungs.
I think the reason is that I chose to do it. I didn't snap and freak out - there was no "loss of control" guilt that came from screaming and the actual scream felt darn good. Think about it. First I took a huge breath - filled up my lungs as completely as I could. There was this split second before I actually screamed where I actually thought about what I was about to do, and it felt like an indulgence. I had the "I'm really going to do this - I'm going to scream as loud as I can and its ok" thought. As I took in that breath, I had leaned back a little and made myself as tall as I could. Then, as I started to hear myself scream, I felt my shoulders and upper back being propelled slightly forward by the force of air leaving my lungs. It was a whole body action and, I'm not going to lie, I felt a little tired afterword.
That was when I started to understand why people liked that therapy. Yeah, ok, your shrink told you it was about that puppy you never got over or your parents not going to your tap lessons every week. Whatever flies your kite. Listen. The reason having a nice, full body, scream is amazing is that its got almost a cleansing effect. All the tension and stress of life right now is physically expelled from the body. Its like giving yourself permission to feel again - instead of forging ahead with school and work and relationships. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I rocked the academic socks off my final paper, in large part because of the joy of the pre-finals scream.
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