Crash Therapy is a very useful type of therapy to reduce stress levels caused by accumulated anger. Discover how to practice it and release your emotions in the following post.
Have you ever heard of the Crash Therapy? It is a way of release anger and stress from breaking objects.
There are companies that are dedicated to it. An amount of money is paid to walk into a room dressed in overalls, gloves, a face shield, and a baseball bat or hammer. Once there, the objective is not to leave a puppet behind. You have to destroy as many objects as possible.
What is it for?
He aim is allowing yourself externalize anger and release adrenaline Many times we do not allow ourselves that emotion and what we do is accumulate it until we can’t take it anymore. That is when explosions of anger arise that can cause major arguments, breakups of relationships (friends, partners, family) or loss of employment and subsequent regret for the behavior carried out.
In my therapies I usually use this resource regularly, but instead of doing it in a soundproof room and destroying old computers, what I do is a more domestic resource that can be used as many times as you want at home. Below I explain how to do Crash Therapy at home.
Who is this therapy indicated for?
This resource can be used by all those people who do not dare to express and release their anger, neither in front of others nor alone, either because they believe that it is bad to feel anger or because they do not feel they have the right to do so.
It is important to comment that anger is a primary emotion that is to say, necessary and existing in every human being, so inhibiting it is something against nature. We need to release it and if we do not do so, psychological symptoms such as anxiety or psychosomatic symptoms such as digestive problems may appear.
What are the steps to follow to externalize anger?
The first thing is detect the origin of rage. What or who is giving you that feeling?
Once the origin has been detected, we must feed the rage and prepare the ground for emotional expression. I usually recommend making a list of grievances. That list should contain short phrases that begin with an expletive such as: “it fucks me…”
Once the list is made, you must read it out loud and think about everything that bothers you.
Once this is done, you have to summarize that list in a phrase short, for example: “It bothers me that you were a bad boyfriend.”
Now is the time to release the rage Take plastic cups and place them face down on the floor. Think about the phrase and say it out loud while crushing the glasses with both legs with all your strength.
Now take an empty (plastic) water bottle and put the cap on it. Do the same as with the glasses and don’t stop until you manage to crush the bottle.
You will notice that your anger is increasing. Now use a sheaf of old magazines or newspapers. Take a newspaper and tear it with your hands even if it’s hard (all of it, it’s no use if you tear a few pages) while repeating that phrase. Don’t stop breaking newspapers, magazines, balloons, cardboard folders, glasses and plastic bottles until you notice that you no longer have anger and you are very tired.
You can also take a soccer ball and kick it with all your strength against a wall or take a racket and tennis or paddle ball and do the same.
During the process it is normal for you to cry and feel tired Don’t worry, it’s what happens once the adrenaline and pent-up rage have been released. The time to stop is now.
All this emotional expression makes the person eliminate the contained anger and then other emotions can be worked on. When the anger is no longer there, the person can focus on working through the grief of having broken up with that partner who was a bad boyfriend (following the example).
This resource can be used as many times as you want Although I recommend doing it in therapy, since once the anger is out, the person may need help to work out what is underneath it.
I would like to end this article by commenting that experiencing anger is not bad We all have this emotion and it is important to allow ourselves to have it. One has to learn to self-regulate and externalize it in a measured way But sometimes it is necessary to expand and give free rein, especially when there are situations that you consider very unfair or that destabilize you too much. That’s not bad nor do you become a bad person for doing it. We all have the right to feel angry sometimes.
