I am sure that everyone has seen a variation of this scene in films. Somebody gets really mad about something and then starts throwing stuff, either at another person or at the wall, or sweeping everything off their desks so that they crash to the floor, scattering debris everywhere. Whenever I see that exceedingly common scene,I always wonder to myself, “Do people really behave like that?” I personally have never felt the urge to do anything remotely destructive like that when I feel angry. Apart from the danger posed by broken crockery and glass flying around, there is also the cost of replacing them and cleaning up the mess. Even if it provides some catharsis, the costs are definitely not worth it, for me at least. No one I know has ever done that either, at least to my knowledge. I doubt that we are particularly placid people. It may just be that this kind of scene is an easy way for filmmakers to show rage as well as providing some action to spice up the film.
But one side-effect of showing them is that it might make people think that breaking stuff is a good way to release pent-up feelings of anger. And there are now things called Rage Rooms where, for a fee, people can go and break stuff when they feel angry.
According to Smash It Rage Rooms in south-east London, where a 30-minute solo session costs £50, “each smash is a cathartic release, a burst of pure, primal joy”.
“We are at capacity – we were looking for another venue because we can’t keep up with demand,” said Amelia Smewing, who set up the business with her husband after exploring ways to help their son cope with PTSD.
Rob Clark, an operations director at Urban Xtreme Ltd, said the popularity of its Rage Room was growing year on year, with customers ranging from younger people looking for a unique experience, to groups of women celebrating break-ups, and people using the space as a “healthy outlet” for stress or mental health challenges.
…Lucy Bee, the founder of Rage Rooms Leamington Spa said her venue also hosted visits from schools and children’s homes. But people also just come for fun. “It’s so against how we’re conditioned to behave,” she said. “It is so naughty.”
Like other venues, Bee said, the typical “rager” is female. “We’re talking early 40s, woman, a couple of kids, good job,” she said.
Bee added that having trained as a holistic therapist she found many women experience guilt and shame over feeling angry.
“A lot of women … are at breaking point, permanently teetering, living in survival mode. And this gives them a way to just let it out,” Bee said, adding that for some people who were struggling the experience could act as a gateway towards seeking further help.
But mental health professionals are skeptical of the touted benefits of breaking things and warn that they may be counter-productive.
Last year Dr Sophie Kjærvik, now at the Norwegian Center for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies in Oslo, co-authored a review into what activities fuel or douse rage. She said the evidence suggested “venting” was actually counterproductive.
“You’re activating your body in a way that your brain can interpret as that you’re getting more angry,” she said. “We found that doing meditation and mindfulness and muscle relaxation activities are way more productive ways of dealing with anger.” Kjærvik said cognitive behavioural therapy was also very efficient.
Dr Ryan Martin, a dean at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and an author of several books on anger, said people who relied on catharsis stayed angrier for longer, and were more likely to lash out aggressively after the fact. “I think the problem is it feels good, so people assume it’s good for them,” he said. “But at the same time, other things that we know might feel good when we’re emotional, like drinking, overeating, … aren’t necessarily good for us either.”
Prof Brad Bushman of Ohio State University, who co-authored the review with Kjærvik, also raised concerns. “When people feed their anger in these rage rooms, they’re just practising how to behave more aggressively,” he said.
This is an old debate, except now in the context of breaking stuff. It used to be argued that when one is angry with someone else, such as a spouse or partner or friend, it was better to openly express that anger, even yell, rather than bottle it up (as I suspect most of us do) out of fear of making things worse or breaking the relationship altogether. “Let it all hang out” was the motto. But later, people started saying that this was not a good idea, that it was better not to say things in the heat of the moment because one may say hurtful things one did not intend to and from which it might be hard to walk back. It was better to shut up and wait until one was calmer and could express one’s feelings in a more restrained way. Of course, this depends on the individual and the extent to which they can control their emotional reactions to external provocations.
I have not kept up with that debate and do not know if it got resolved either way. My own experience is that speaking out strongly when I was angry rarely made things better. It also made me feel remorseful for saying intemperate things because when one is angry, one tends to exaggerate and overstate things, often unfairly. I now try to walk away from the situation and carefully form what I should say later when things have cooled down. Just the act of mentally rehearsing the future conversation I hope to have helps make me feel calmer.
There is saying: “Don’t say anything you might regret later”. You can never take back something that you said in the heat of the moment. And if you’re in a hyper excited state, it may well be that what you said is not something that you really believe anyway as you’re just lashing out and not thinking rationally.
But speaking of breaking things, if there is one phrase that I loathe it’s “move fast and break things”. This has become a cheap stand-in for being creative. I believe it has gained traction because being truly creative is difficult and can be exhausting. Meanwhile, breaking things is comparatively easy because now entropy is working for you, not against you. To the naive eye, both creative action and destruction change the environment, and thus, are seen as related processes. This phrase ranks up there with “creative destruction”. What’s next, “infertile procreation”?
There is such a thing as righteous anger. There’s no royal road to figure out when such anger is wise or not. Developing the mental skills to tell the difference is a skill, a skill someone needs to practice just like anything else.
Some things are full of illogical inertia and need to be broken, and no stepwise ‘wise-seeming’ action will work against it. Human beings are creatures of habit.
jimf @ # 1: What’s next, “infertile procreation”?
Uh, it’s called “contraception”, and it has a lot of justified appeal. I think Roger Zelazny described it as “the urge to continue the human race, but not tonight.”
I threw things as a baby, child and early teen. The first time I saw my little brother when I was fourteen months old I threw a small wooden shield at him. It usually was Little Bro I threw things at, because he’d take my stuff when he couldn’t find his, like bike locks, bike lights, bungee cords, all of which we both needed to get to school, if you didn’t have them you had to walk, of course by the time I found he’d ‘borrowed mine there wasn’t usually time for me to walk and get there on time. Yes I am justifying my anger, but not my actions although I did get a sense of satisfaction at the time, especially if whatever I’d thrown hit him I didn’t usually throw breakables, just one mug of tea and the mug didn’t break. For me it culminated when I threw a small brass bell, around 13cm high that my disabled mother used to get our attention when we were in our rooms. Little brother was running up the stairs and I threw the bell with sufficient force that it cut 4cm into the corner of a banister spindle, had it gone a little to the side it would have hit him either in his upper left leg or had his leg not been in the way his junk. I realised that if the bell had hit him I could have seriously hurt him and it shocked me right out of my anger. I simply don’t give in to that level of anger now, it did take a lot of work but I control the anger, rather than letting the feelings control me. that control comes in handy for managing other feelings too. You may ask where my parents were in all of this and the answer is not there, see disabled mum and dad didn’t come down for breakfast until we’d all gone to school.
“break your face” is a popular name for songs. best one is probably by talulah gosh.
there’s a meme about how angry white boys are a menace to drywall, sometimes comes up. that movie with kyle ron and scarjo as shouty people was a boon to it. punchin holes.
i’ve beaten on stuff in moments of high frustration. if you use the distal end of the fist instead of the knuckles, your drywall is safer. kitchen counters won’t break, tho they can break your hand. if you beat yourself, the environment in general is safer, but they say that’s to be avoided. one type of self harm could slippery slope you towards a worse one. hard to resist punchin myself a little (proximal side of fist to the forehead or distal to the thigh) when stress gets extreme. life is rugged like rocks. fortunately far from an everyday thing.
i’ve seen some discussion of that science before. it makes sense to get the science against, to influence situations where a person is control of themself. this is not always possible.
There’s an interesting slant to this story, don’t you think? Anyone who’s spent much time around affluent women who live in the south of England will ruefully shake their head in recognition. The combination of spare time, spare money and entitlement is key.
The last quote is the one I find infuriating -- the implication that being at breaking point is a peculiarly female experience in the UK in 2025. Meanwhile, the rate of suicide (note: ACTUAL suicide, not “attempted suicide” or whatever else you want to call what those people do (“pathetic selfish attention seeking” is what I’ve called it when members of my family have indulged in it)) among men is comfortably three times the rate among women, and on the increase. If “a lot” of women are at breaking point, the actual facts inconveniently indicate that a lot MORE men are. The difference appears to be they’re not spending their time and money going to a playground to play smash up, they’re staying home and killing themselves.
Also notable, the average suicide rate in the northeast of England is almost twice that of London and the southeast. Again, it’s almost as though the sorts of people who can afford to go and drop £35 just to smash some things (I checked the prices in a London one) don’t actually have as many problems as people in poorer parts of the country.
There is a legitimately interesting story here about how men and women are socialised to process anger differently, along with the other interesting story about whether the catharsis on offer helps or hinders progress.
@3 Pierce
Uh, no. Procreation is the act of producing offspring, and that can’t happen if both partners aren’t fertile. Thus, “infertile procreation” is nonsensical, as compared to infertile intercourse (which can be perfectly sensible and a lot of fun, as you mention).
“each smash is a cathartic release, a burst of pure, primal joy”
“When people feed their anger in these rage rooms, they’re just practising how to behave more aggressively,”
Something in those quotes made me think about Trump’s foreign policy.
@sonofrojblake, see also things like “one in four victims of male violence is a woman or girl” …..
Steve on his Council estate in the North-East (one row with his missus away from homelessness) keeps getting told by smug, middle-class women in London that he has “male privilege” and “white privilege”, and yet he doesn’t feel better off than Beyoncé.
From personal experience such venting is practice. You are what you do when it comes from the brain and behavior.
I used to have a pretty bad anger problem. I would yell at video games very harshly. I was a tourette syndrome stereotype when it came to angry ranting when frustrated. I did some damage to things but it was mostly verbal and not directed at people.
It just made me more likely to be angry and when I started saying awful things about people I put myself on a zero tolerance plan to stop acting out when angry or frustrated. It took a while but I eventually stopped. It was worth it. I didn’t like who I was becoming.
@bluerizlagirl -- amen. He also doesn’t feel better off than all them immigrants wotz comin over ere and getting free wifi and hotels. And it’s him and people like him that we have to thank for Brexit and Prime Minister Boris Johnson -- which is four words that should never have been put in that order, but happened because David Cameron was an idiot in 2015 and a coward in 2016 and the only alternative at the election that should have unseated Johnson was Jeremy Fucking Corbyn, who managed to alienate the so-called Red Wall by being the epitome of an Islington Trot. FUCK I hate all three of them.
These lies fed to “Steve” by the billionaires who own the media are what will likely lead sooner or later to Farage as PM. Even a year ago I’d have scoffed at the thought -- they’ve got 5 MPs and keep shooting themselves in the foot after all -- but annoyingly that doesn’t seem to matter, especially when the best the *actual* official opposition party can scrape off their shoes is Kemi Badenough. Sorry for veering off into electoral politics here.
My understanding of catharsis is that it’s not a great thing, in general. How most people approach it is to take an existing feeling or desire, most often but not exclusively anger, purposefully inflame it to the point where self-control is difficult, and then release it all in one burst in some activity designed to facilitate that. It feels good in the moment, may provide some temporary relief if that’s needed, and there may even be an appeal to it for some people in “losing” oneself for a short time. But if you’re using it to deal with an ongoing issue, then your rage or sadness or hatred or lust or whatever hasn’t really gone away, and will simmer back up to the surface soon enough. It’s not really any different than using drugs to forget the pain, or to engage in gambling for bursts of excitement, and can be just as addictive as either.
For that matter, people who become violent abusers without *originally* having any malevolent intent do so because they’ve become rage addicts, and their partners or children or whoever their target(s) are, are “safe” sources of cathartic purge. Not that most of them think of it that way, as they are too wrapped in layers of mental self-protection against the concept of “this is bad and I’m being a bad person”. At least going out of one’s way to break objects in a controlled environment is far better than spontaneously breaking people, but it’s usually coming from the same place, and it’s not a good place.
I’m not going to tell people never to engage in any form of catharsis. It’s an intense experience, and intense experiences can be fun for a lot of people, provided you do such things only as a special occasion and do it for *fun* rather than as a short-term substitute for dealing with whatever bad crap is stuck in your head.
@1, @3, and @7
Cloning and, unless some kink with petri dishes is involved, not much fun.
@ OP
The scene in Citizen Kane, acted and directed by Orson Welles, may have started the tantrums-by-adults trope in films.
The earliest incident in my life that I remember happened when I was three or four years old. I had thrown a toy truck at my younger brother -- I don’t actually remember the throw -- and I can see him sitting on the ground blood flowing down his forehead with the truck next to his left leg. No real damage, but I think that influenced my aversion to violence.