Feeling frustrated at work? Angry with someone?
Several cities around the world are opening clubs where the public can come to vent their frustration an anger in a controlled environment.
One such club has recently opening in Hungary:
"The Furiousness Centre, based in downtown Budapest, encourages customers to vent spleen by destroying various objects in a controlled environment."a href='
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29371930' target='_blank'>
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29371930 And if you live in Buenos Aires there is the 'Break Club':
"It is a group of people - mostly women - who have started getting together to smash up rubbish as a way of venting their aggression, all within a safe and controlled environment. They can throw bottles at the wall, or take all their frustration out on an old computer."
www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24734296 And in Dallas, Texas there is the 'Anger Room':
"The Anger Room builds mock kitchens, living rooms and replicas of actual workplaces, and fills them with big-screen TVs, VCRs, fax machines, desks, potted plants -- the list is endless. Customers then pay money to destroy them.
Hugo, a 24-year-old retail salesman from Dallas who asked that his last name not be used, paid $45 for 15 minutes inside the Anger Room and said it was worth every penny.
"I can't afford a psychiatrist, but I can afford this," he said, as he crushed a large TV with a baseball bat.
Founder Donna Alexander said most of her customers are "normal 9-to-5'ers."
"We get a lot of high-level executives, people who own their own businesses, they come from all walks of life," she said.
And at least half of her clients are women, from mothers blowing off steam after a stressful day with the kids to ladies with relationship problems who take their anger out on mannequins.
"[They] put pictures on them, write on them and then they try to beat the crap out of them," Alexander said.
But she said most of her customers sign up to relieve job stress, not personal stress. And there are limits to how angry clients can get in the Anger Room. Alexander said she has had to turn down people who asked to bring in chainsaws and machetes. She also advises them not to rip the wires out of the walls.
Alexander said she doesn't pretend this environment is a legitimate mental health treatment. But to her critics, who have said the Anger Room is dangerous or glorifies violence, she said, "You can't tell me that you have never been angry before. You can't tell me that. If you haven't ever felt like that maybe you are the crazy one."
abcnews.go.com/Business/anger-room-texas-stressed-customers-smash-tvs-junk/story?id=16315732 Are these places appropriate avenues for dealing with unwanted emotions?
Do they play an important role, preventing or lessening the chance that people will vent their frustration on objects and people in their lives?
Or do they legitimise violence, possibly making destructive acts more acceptable outside of these spaces?
What do you think?
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