The Working Phase Perspective
Smashing Through Learned Helplessness: A Therapist Visits a Rage Room
Hey you! I was off last week because I did something a little out of the ordinary, and truly cathartic: I visited a rage room.
If you've never heard of a rage room, all it is is a safe space to break stuff. The one I went to provided items to smash and allows people to bring their own smashable items.
You get 20 minutes, a Bluetooth speaker, safety gear, and a selection of bats, rackets, and (my personal preference) heavy metal pipes. Then, it's time to let loose!
The experience was SO fun!
I, like many of you, have strong feelings about the failures of the systems we work within. But paradoxically, it's a real challenge to access all that raw rage on demand! It's like trying to summon a panic attack on demand. Not gonna happen.
However, the real magic of this experience will come afterward. In a rage room, you can create a series of physical, visceral memories of making something explode into a thousand tiny pieces.
That visual is powerful for when the helpless and powerless feelings of the job hit (like when a client is in crisis.
Also getting to smash different types of items added to the symbolism: the wine bottles represented one issue, the vases another, and I saved the nicest dishware for yet a third issue.
If YOU go to a rage room, I have 4 recommendations for you:
1) Bring your own items! You can decide what smashing them means to you and you'll have more connection to the meaning.
I used my personal items to signify the baggage I'm leaving behind, including unexpressed feelings. Since then, when those lingering or unresolved feelings resurface, I remind myself that I've already smashed through that symbolically, and I can totally it again (for real).
2) Pace yourself! You'd think it'd be easy to go nuts for 20 minutes. It's not.
Thankfully, someone warned me, so I took my time, got some breathwork, EMDR tapping, and grounding exercises in, and carefully, methodically worked through the items in the room.
Probably a little unnerving to see a middle-aged woman in full zen absolutely demolishing everything in sight, but hey, I used all the time I paid for!
3) Prepare a playlist!
I had forgotten that a speaker was going to be provided for my own music. Music is very important to me. If it is to you, prepare your "break stuff" playlist. As a Millenial of a certain age, I leaned on Linkin Park and it got the job done!
Therapeutic Caution: Moving forward, I'd take care to incorporate this in my own therapeutic work or within my caseload.
I would absolutely take certain clients to an experience like this, maybe once or twice during their treatment, after thorough screening and liability issues were addressed. I think it could benefit clients who struggle with breaking norms, looking weird or out of control, or who have been disconnected from their power.
BUT, REMEMBER...
Catharsis has significant limitations. There's significant risk to clients and communities, if we just train people to discharge violence whenever they feel like it.
Like with psychedelic-assisted therapy, the integration phase is key.
A significant part of my caseload includes childhood survivors of abuse. There is beauty in reclamation of stolen power, but they also need to know that there are other, perfectly acceptable ways to express anger.
We need just as many opportunities to practice skills like discernment, safety planning, communication, and interpersonal relationship building as well.
That said, I'll definitely be back to smash some things, and I'm gonna take the right clients when the time calls for it.
Let me know if you've got any other unconventional interventions you want to try! Would you try a rage room?
-Andreana
