Amber Walcker unleashed a powerful cry that echoed across the Puget Sound waters, joining approximately twelve other participants in West Seattle as they released their built-up tensions into the evening air.
This marked only the beginning. Two additional group sessions followed, each building in duration and intensity, helping Walcker process the emotional weight of her recent unemployment. The stress of parenting two small children seemed to melt away as her voice mixed with the sounds of nearby waves, leaving her with a profound sense of peace.
“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 September gathering launched Seattle’s branch of Scream Club, which has become part of a nationwide movement featuring 17 locations that have emerged within the past year across cities including Austin, Texas; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Atlanta; Detroit; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The original Chicago location emerged from relationship challenges experienced by its creators.
Founders Manny Hernandez and Elena Soboleva had recently begun living together following eighteen months of maintaining a long-distance relationship. During a lakefront walk along Lake Michigan, Hernandez, who works as a breathwork practitioner and men’s coach, proposed they release their relationship tensions by shouting from a pier’s edge.
After requesting permission from nearby bystanders, the entire group decided to participate, their collective voices carrying their emotions across the water.
“After we did it, some people were crying, including Elena,” Hernandez said. “That’s when we looked at each other and said, ‘This is probably something that we should start.’”
Chapter meetings vary between weekly and monthly schedules depending on location, but consistently occur in parks or waterfront areas to reduce noise complaints. Each session starts with members documenting their concerns on environmentally-friendly paper.
Participants then engage in coordinated breathing exercises and voice preparation activities, including humming techniques combined with controlled breathing patterns.
“You can really strain your throat if you just do it,” said Soboleva, a personal brand and business mentor. “So it’s gradual, breathing from your diaphragm and carefully starting off slow and warming up to louder and louder.”
The group performs three synchronized screaming rounds with breathing breaks between each session, while discarding their written concerns into the water.
“That third scream, you have to feel it in your body,” said Walcker, who established the club’s Seattle chapter. “Get down, be in a primal stance, whatever it feels like to you in that moment.”
These Scream Club methods draw from primal scream therapy concepts developed by Los Angeles psychoanalyst Arthur Janov during the 1960s. Janov theorized that early life trauma generated adult psychological issues, which could be addressed by accessing painful emotions and expressing them through screaming and tears under professional guidance.
Subsequent decades of research have not validated scream therapy as an effective mental health treatment, according to Ashwini Nadkarni, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School.
However, the practice offers excellent stress reduction benefits.
Nadkarni explained that screaming stimulates brain circuits within the amygdala and hippocampus — “the oldest part of our brain” responsible for managing stress and emotions. The act also triggers the sympathetic nervous system’s fight-or-flight response. When screaming concludes, the parasympathetic system activates, instructing the body to enter rest mode.
“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.”
Beyond physical benefits, the communal aspect of gathering with others provides additional advantages.
“The idea of people getting together to enhance community in ways that help them blow off some steam is incredible,” she said.
Hernandez noted that while publicly discussing personal motivations isn’t required, many participants stay afterward to discuss their struggles. Chicago chapter attendees have included individuals grieving recent losses, someone facing cancer for a second time, and many dealing with relationship difficulties.
Walcker observed that some participants even attend to express joy through screaming. Regardless of motivation, the Seattle group typically gathers before sunset to observe the sun setting over the water following their sessions.
“It’s kind of like putting everything to rest,” she said. “And that everyone knows that that’s the end of that, and we can all start fresh.”
