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<p>The next time you&#8217;re feeling the need to vent, get rid of your stress and anger, and just let it all hang out, you&#8217;re in luck if you&#8217;re in Houston or some other city that offers rage rooms. Although you have to fork over $50 for 15 minutes of action (that&#8217;s almost 6 cents a second, by the way).</p><p>A rage room is a relatively small enclosure with a variety of breakable objects such as glassware, dishes, an old TV or computer, etc. You have a bat in hand. You wear goggles and a helmet for protection, then spend 15 minutes smashing all this stuff.</p><p>Fun? You betcha! And if you do it a couple of times for kicks or curiosity, it isn&#8217;t going to change your life. But are rage rooms a good way to learn how to cope with anger?</p><p>Probably not.</p><p>Based on some sound research, psychologists generally recognize that aggressive venting of anger, stress, frustration and other emotions that tend to make us uncomfortable &#8211; well, the venting just doesn&#8217;t work. In fact, it&#8217;s likely to backfire.</p><p>Think about it. You&#8217;re in this room and start to smash things. You begin to get worked up, and swing harder and harder, breaking everything in sight. When you&#8217;re all done, you feel really good, relieved (except you&#8217;re out 50 bucks). There&#8217;s no doubt that aggressive venting of emotions generally has a satisfying effect, but &#8211; and here&#8217;s the problem &#8211; that satisfying effect is very temporary. Those nasty emotions will return.</p><p>Now ask yourself this: While in the rage room, what type of action did you experience that had a satisfying result? You got it &#8211; energetically letting it all come pouring out. That&#8217;s fine if you&#8217;re in a rage room, but what if you&#8217;re with your boss, your spouse, your kids, a friend or whomever? An excessive display of rage might not be in your best interests.</p><p>One of the biggest flaws of rage rooms is that they do not help you resolve an issue or learn how to transform frustration and hostility into constructive anger. Thus, although probably harmless when done occasionally and with realistic expectations and perspectives, rage rooms potentially can allow you to practice and enjoy aggressively acting out your anger. That&#8217;s great in the rage room, but what are you going to do when you&#8217;re really furious but the room isn&#8217;t there?</p><p>Rage rooms remind us of a fad used in marital therapy 30 to 40 years ago. During a counseling session couples were given harmless foam or balloon-type bats and then told to vent their anger and hostility on each other using the bats. This was supposed to be a safe way to get conflicts out in the open.</p><p>Well, it didn&#8217;t work, and in some cases escalated the conflict to the point where an actual physical altercation broke out in the therapist&#8217;s office! The harmless bats led to emotional arousal, awakened a lot of underlying negative emotions between the spouses, and encouraged them to get physically aggressive.</p><p>A major part of the problem is that you probably feel you should not be angry. How many times have you told yourself that? From early childhood, you were told you must avoid and manage your anger. You were not supposed to get angry at home, school, in public or at work. This is an irrational belief.</p><p>Coping effectively with anger requires you to remember that, like all emotions, anger provides you with information. You must use that information to determine the best direction your actions should take. Should you withdraw from the situation (a co-worker made you angry, and you want to tell him to go to hell), or should you confront it (a misbehaving child made you angry)?</p><p>You should not try to get rid of anger when you experience it. Rather, you should seek constructive social interactions for transforming the anger, such as being appropriately assertive, determined, competitive, achievement-oriented or persistent, depending on the situation.</p><p>There also are physical activities such as boxing, walking, running, martial arts and P90X workouts. These activities can produce endorphin (natural) highs, a sense of personal control and pride, distraction from what is bothering you, and better health. They are much more than convenient and simple &#8220;middle-finger actions&#8221; that, at best, produce mostly childish behavior and waste energy, or at worst, lead to additional anger and harmful confrontations.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Michael Church</p><p>and</p><p>Charles Brooks</p><p>Guest columnists</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Michael Church is a psychology professor at King&#8217;s College in Wilkes-Barre. Charles Brooks is a King&#8217;s College professor emeritus of psychology. They have started a blog, thecopingblog.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Michael Church and Charles Brooks: ‘Rage rooms’ not all they’re cracked up to be