The Science Of Anger: Does Venting Truly Help Us Move Forward?

This idea is so ingrained within our thinking that it even has commercial support. Rage rooms or “anger rooms”, for instance, have become such a success that they have popped up in cities across America, the UK, and elsewhere. By allowing you to vent your rage on various objects, usually by way of a hammer or other swingable weapon, these locations promise a range of “cathartic” benefits that are not only fun and entertaining but also “therapeutic”.  

Similarly, those of a more digital bent can find release online through specially designed “rant” sites that allow visitors to freely purge themselves of their anger with words and vitriol. There is even the ability to read and comment on other people’s angry narratives.  

But is this kind of release all it’s cracked up to be?

For some time now, psychologists and other mental health professionals have questioned the assumptions underpinning these supposed benefits. Contrary to a popular psychology myth, it seems venting rage may actually be more harmful than good and may make it more likely that someone will act with aggression in the future.  

But where did this idea come from and how, if you’ll excuse the pun, did it become all the rage?  

Pressure build-up and release

As with many popular psychology ideas circulating today, the belief that anger is something that needs to be released can be dated to the late 19th century. At the time, individuals interested in the workings of the mind, like Sigmund Freud, described emotional build-up in terms analogous to fluids and systems under pressure. According to this way of thinking, which some have called the hydraulic model of emotions, emotional pressure can build up in our minds to the point where it causes psychological strain and neurotic symptoms.

In their 1895 book, Studies in Hysteria, Freud and his colleague Joseph Breuer explained ways to address this type of emotional “excitement” by way of “catharsis”, a process that alleviates the build-up of strong emotions through direct or indirect means.  Once released, so Freud argued, an individual should experience some mental relief. Obviously, this is a radical simplification of Freud’s ideas, but it nevertheless shows how it started to enter popular thought.

Throughout the 20th century, psychoanalysts and others influenced by Freud started to explore the power of catharsis, especially in relation to anger, for psychotherapy. So, this work set the basis for the idea in popular culture, but then some weird, high-profile health fads helped to reinforce it.

Primal scream and the self-help world

In the early 1970s, a new pop psychology fad emerged in America that breathed, or screamed, new life into an old idea. Primal Scream therapy, or Primal therapy, was the brainchild of psychologist Arthur Janov, a psychoanalyst by training (and so heavily influenced by Freud), who developed the idea that neurosis is caused by repressed emotional pain acquired in early childhood. This “trauma” – which could be caused by a lack of parental attention, not being breastfed, and indeed the ordeal of being born in the first place – could only be addressed through a dramatic and powerful cathartic release, such as screaming.  

According to his popular and influential book, The Primal Scream, which was first published in 1970, Janov came to this revelation after witnessing a “breakthrough” with a student patient of his in 1967. At the time, the young man, called Danny Wilson, had been fascinated by a London stage show he saw where a grown man kept calling out for his mummy and daddy.  

Picking up on how this performance had clearly impacted Wilson, Janov encouraged the student to try calling out for his own mummy and daddy. After some persuading, Wilson gave in. That’s when things took a turn for the dramatic. As Janov said, Wilson “became noticeably upset. Suddenly he was writhing on the floor in agony.”

Wilson’s breathing was rapid and “spasmodic” and the words “Mommy! Daddy!” emerged from his mouth in “loud screeches”. Finally, after writhing and convulsing on the floor for a few minutes, Wilson let loose “a piercing, deathlike scream that rattled the walls of [Janov’s] office.”

Apparently, this primal scream, a scream from his very core, as it were, represented some sort of emotional resolution for Wilson, who could only say “I made it! I don’t know what, but I can feel!”

This became the basis for Janov’s method, which he championed as the only way to relieve emotional trauma. To be sure, an individual could release their apparent childhood trauma through various methods – crying, talking, or, of course, screaming – but it nevertheless required they “regress” to a point where they could relive and reexperience the supposed traumatic event.  

The book is filled with testimonials and approval, and the fad became popular with several influential celebrities, such as James Earl Jones, Roger Williams, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono. The idea also emerged within the context of the late 1960s/1970s countercultural movements, and Janov himself became a public figure who touted a therapy that was completely in Vogue…literally. However, there is practically no scientific evidence to back up any of Janov’s claims.

Today, psychologists reject Primal Scream Therapy and have discredited it as, at best, pseudopsychology, and at worst, a potentially harmful practice. The whole approach lacks any substantive outcome studies and even its fundamental assumption, that adults can recall infantile experiences, has been refuted.   

The dangers of venting

Although Primal Scream therapy has far fewer advocates these days, there are still those who subscribe to it as well as others who have absorbed and modified some of its assumptions about catharsis. Rage rooms, rant sites, and variations of the screaming therapy remain features of the “treatment” landscape. But the same limitations have not yet been overcome.  

In 2013, a study into anger on the internet found that those who contributed to rant sites demonstrated unusually high levels of trait anger (the extent to which you are an “angry” person more generally). They also found that those who used the sites reported negative outcomes from their anger, including getting into physical and verbal fights, having damaged relationships, breaking and damaging property, and being dangerous drivers.  

One could argue that angry people may be drawn to these sites because they allow them to act on their anger, however, the research found that participating in ranting made people generally angrier. In the second part of their study, they asked participants to read other people’s rants and measured how this affected their mood. They also asked participants to write their own versions. As you probably anticipated, the results showed that ranting led most participants to feel less happy while it increased their anger.  

At the moment, there has been little research into the effectiveness of rage rooms to produce positive lasting effects. One study, conducted in 2021, explored the use of virtual rage rooms that allowed cancer patients to destroy objects in a virtual reality (VR) room. The results, however, were unclear. Although participants reported enjoying the experience, the researchers noted that they took part in the exercise at a time when they were not overly stressed or frustrated, which makes it difficult to assess the VR rooms value as a tool for venting anger and indeed whether that is a good thing.  

Clearly, more research is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn on this aspect, but more general research into venting anger has found that acting on it in aggressive ways may make some people more prone to aggression in the future.  

Ultimately, all these methods for venting one’s rage have something in common – they all avoid the root causes that trigger the anger in the first place. It might feel great in the moment to destroy everything around you or to scream into the endless void, but that does not remove the thing that causes the upset. Nor are you developing any useful or constructive solutions for dealing with it.  

So rather than venting pent-up rage, what can we do? Well, a recent meta-analysis explored 154 previous studies (with a total of over 10,000 participants) on anger and found that activities that lowered physical arousal were better for reducing it. Even the age-old practice of going for a run when angry is more likely to stoke the fires than to put them out. Instead, arousal-reducing activities like deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation, or just taking time out were found to be far more impactful.  

The analysis also found that taking part in sports with team components, such as ball sports, helped lower physical arousal. This may be because they introduce an element of play into the activity that may increase positive emotions.  

Ultimately, the added benefit of these arousal-decreasing activities is they are all cheap and sustainable. This is a far cry from the cost of renting a smash room for that cathartic hit, so you can consider them as healthier solutions for both your mind and wallet.

The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions. 

All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.