The first rule of Scream Club is that you have to sign something indemnifying Scream Club in case you hurt yourself screaming.

“I acknowledge that participation in Scream Clubᵀᴹ may carry certain risks, including but not limited to emotional distress, vocal strain, or accidental injury,” reads the liability waiver.

The second rule of Scream Club is that you don’t talk about what brought you to Scream Club. Well, you can if you really want to. But feel free to set an intention in your heart and keep it there.

“Just think about something that you’d really like to release, something that’s been bothering you,” says John Hueste, co-leader of the Washington, D.C. chapter of Scream Club — an extracurricular group that emerged last winter and has expanded to several U.S. cities. “Something that you feel like screaming about.”

On Oct. 19 a group of about 12 people circled up at the end of District Pier, as Hueste and fellow chapter head Monica Elms led them through what was about to take place.

“We’ll start with some breath work, and we’ll set an intention,” Hueste says to the group.

An anxious-looking security guard with a walkie-talkie eyed them from the side of the wide pier at the heart of the Wharf entertainment district. Hueste and Elms chose it because screaming on private property would spare them the need to get permission from the National Park Service. Plus, an apolitical setting is best, since people aren’t necessarily screaming about politics.

“It would be great to be able to scream in front of the White House,” Hueste says, “but that’s probably not the best location, especially just for, like, a general scream.”

In 2025, people have plenty of options for how to release tension. (And for some people, in Washington and elsewhere, there has been a lot of tension.) You can go to yoga, go to therapy, practice meditation, lift weights, post on the internet. But have you tried: screaming in public? That’s always been an option, of course, but there’s a structured version now. A safe space for screamers.

“Obviously we have demonstrations and protests,” Hueste says. “But there’s not really a way to just, like, let out your anger or frustrations or whatever it is for just anything, even if it’s personal.”

Therapeutic screaming dates back to the 1960s, when psychologist Arthur Janov developed primal scream therapy, based on the notion that all adult neuroses originated from childhood trauma and could be addressed through regression. The scream, a manifestation of that regression, “sounds like what you might hear from a person about to be murdered,” Janov told People magazine in 1978. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were among its proponents. Janov’s techniques have fallen out of favor, and some therapists assert that there is no long-term therapeutic benefit to scream therapy.

But that’s not what this is. Scream Club, while positioned as a “wellness community,” isn’t therapy — it’s just a way to let off steam.

“I have found a lot of joy in screaming,” says Elms, whose alma mater, Michigan State University, has a tradition of a finals week “midnight scream.”

Scream Club was founded in Chicago by couple Manny Hernandez and Elena Soboleva, who decided to scream it out after a tough week last December. It went viral for its line of angsty Midwesterners bellowing it out on the shore of Lake Michigan. Hernandez is a fitness coach and breath-work practitioner.

Screaming “calms your nervous system down,” he says. “It does give you this cathartic feeling.” Says Soboleva: “It’s such a taboo to do something like that — to scream, especially in public. For me personally, it was a form of liberation.”

The club began to expand to other cities including Austin, Phoenix and Atlanta. And now it’s in Washington, a city that sure does have an awful lot to scream about. The inaugural scream took place Oct. 19, and the co-leaders will continue to host biweekly — and eventually, if there’s enough interest, weekly — screams.

As Hueste led the group in a breathing exercise (inhale to the count of four, hold for four seconds, then exhale slowly), a vessel advertising hot-tub boat tours passed by. The captain waved.

“Try to scream this way,” said the security guard, gesturing toward East Potomac Park, away from the expensive boats and crowds lined up at the Anthem for a concert featuring Swedish rapper Yung Lean.

Elms notified all of the people milling around nearby about what would happen, so they wouldn’t be alarmed. A few chose to join in.

Everyone lined up, and on the count of three, let out a collective “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Then another, and then — “Make it big,” Hueste instructed — a third scream.

The screaming ended. Nobody appeared to have injured themselves. Quite the opposite.

“My body is kind of, like, vibrating right now,” JonElle Lemon, who came from Alexandria, said postscream.

“I feel like my chest feels better,” said Abigail Tierney, of Washington. “The anxiety kind of goes to my chest, usually. And it feels released.”