Amber Walcker joined about a dozen people in West Seattle for the Seattle chapter of Scream Club, a wellness group that gathers near water to release stress with coordinated screaming. Walcker said the practice helped after recent job loss and added pressure from raising two young children, and she described a shift from pain to calm during the session over Puget Sound.
Walcker said the first meeting was in September and followed a routine built around vocal preparation. Participants write down what they want to release on biodegradable paper, then take a series of collective deep breaths and vocal warm-ups such as humming while breathing in and out, said Elena Soboleva, who runs a personal brand and business mentoring group. Soboleva said people can strain their throat if they do it too quickly, and described the process as gradual—breathing from the diaphragm and starting slow before warming up louder.
The structure of the gathering emphasizes the synchronized act itself. Everyone screams together three times, with several deep breaths between, and then throws their paper into the water. Walcker, who started the Seattle chapter, said the third scream requires people to feel it in their body and get into a primal stance for the experience as it happens.
The Associated Press reported that the Seattle chapter is part of a rapid spread of the concept. Co-founders Manny Hernandez and Soboleva helped launch the Chicago chapter, and AP said 17 chapters have appeared in less than a year around the United States, including in Austin, Texas; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Atlanta; Detroit; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In Seattle, the group typically meets just before sunset so members can watch the sun dip below the water afterward, Walcker said.
The origin story, Hernandez said, began with a couple’s transition. He and Soboleva had moved in together after dating long-distance for a year and a half, and Hernandez recounted that the idea came while they were walking along Lake Michigan. He said he suggested they scream at the end of a pier to release frustrations, and when they asked permission of nearby people, those present decided to scream together, with their raw emotion echoing over the water.
Hernandez said that after the group screamed, some people were crying, including Soboleva, and he recalled looking at each other and deciding that it was something they should start. Soboleva later described how sessions keep disturbance low by taking place in parks or near bodies of water, with meetings that can be weekly or monthly depending on the chapter.
While Scream Club frames its practice as an outlet, experts contacted by AP cautioned about the links to older “primal scream therapy.” The AP report said the group’s techniques are descended from the primal scream therapy theory developed in the 1960s by Los Angeles psychoanalyst Arthur Janov, who argued that childhood trauma can create neuroses in adults treatable through screaming and crying under therapist supervision. AP said research in later decades has not found scream therapy to be effective for treating mental health conditions.
Ashwini Nadkarni, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School, said the practice is still a stress reliever. Nadkarni said the act of screaming engages circuits in the amygdala and hippocampus, and also activates the sympathetic nervous system, the fight-or-flight stress response; she said once the screaming stops, the parasympathetic system kicks in and signals the body to rest. She compared the cycle to how the body regulates during exercise, describing racing heart and shortness of breath during effort followed by relaxation afterward.
The AP report also said the group’s benefits include the social element of doing something together. Nadkarni said the idea of people coming together to enhance community and help blow off steam is “incredible.” Hernandez said it is not standard practice for participants to publicly share why they come, but he said many linger afterward and talk about personal struggles, and he cited examples including grief, a return of cancer for one person, and relationship difficulties. Walcker added that some people even come to scream for joy, and described the end of the session as a way to put everything to rest and start fresh.