Quiet, please

In 1967, a psychotherapist named Arthur Janov developed what he called "primal scream" therapy, to be used in dealing with what he called "primal pain."

At the time, Janov was in a therapy session with a young male patient when he heard "an eerie scream welling up from the depths of a young man lying on the floor." From this, he came up with primal therapy, "primal" being the term psychology uses to define "the full reliving and cathartic release of an early traumatic experience." In primal therapy, Janov told his clients to re-live and express repressed memories and feelings.

And not only relive and express them, no sir! He told people to holler and let all the pain out.

Please note that I was 16 in 1967, but, then as now an avid reader, so when I started dealing with my adolescent angst by screaming like a banshee around the house, as I read that Janov advocated, my wise father offered to give me something to scream about for real.

I guess it was Janov's theories that led to a briefly popular trend in family lives in which Junior and Matilda were encouraged to give voice to their emotions wherever and whenever, and at whatever volume they could muster. "Let him get it all out" became the watchword, as the rest of the family at dinner, or the people in line at the BuySumMor, or the other assembled congregants just had to sit there or stand there or kneel there and endure the vocal barrage. Congress outlawed this practice in the early 90s.

But the COVID-19 has brought it back! In Herzliya, Israel, some Israelis who have grown tired of quarantines, and are looking for communion with others and emotional release, are getting together to give the world a good screaming-to.

They are vaccinating for the 'Rona in Israel, but they are still limiting social events. And with all that going on, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's legal battles, many citizens are just down with the malaise. 

As you might expect, some take to the street to vent their feelings, and some, well... some are going out to shout it to the sky!

"We decided to meet, our group together, in order to take the group screaming so that we can release our bad energies," said Mary Peery, as she and ten others took to the hills in an orange grove, yelling all the way.

"When we do it in a group it's like a prayer ... and maybe God will hear us and release us from this COVID-19 curse," Ms Peery said.

The Ten + One arrange themselves like a chorus. They have all either been vaccinated or have recovered from the virus, so they doff their masks and howl to the four winds and seven seas.

Will this take hold across this sea? I don't know. Hey, Gwen Stefani was nominated for a Record Of The Year Grammy for "Hollaback Girl" in 2004, and now 2021 finds her living with Blake Shelton.

There's not enough hollering in the world to help her with that situation.