Scream

Scream refers to a loud utterance at high volume. Screaming is usually associated with strong emotional sensations; depending on the age of the person, screaming has a different communicative meaning.

What is that screaming

A scream is a human utterance at an increased volume. Infants scream piercingly and persistently to attract attention and secure adult care. The older a person gets, the less they scream out of need for help, the screaming then turns into a warning signal or a means of communication over long distances.

The louder a person can scream, the further away other people can be with whom they want to communicate. In an evolutionary sense, this type of utterance also had a protective effect: the bigger, more colorful and louder an enemy could appear, the more threatening it was perceived. Shouting helped humans appear threatening to enemies in combat and defense.

Even today people scream in an argument. Furthermore, screaming in adulthood is associated with strong emotional impulses - intense anger, sadness or joy can lead to an increase in the volume of the voice and even screaming.

Function & task

Crying has a special meaning for newborns and infants. They cannot yet articulate themselves in clear words, at first they can hardly express different needs. Within a few weeks, parents learn to interpret their infant's crying and to recognize differences. An infant screams loudly and piercingly to get the attention of adults, especially that of their parents. The assumption is that screaming is supposed to arouse the need to turn it off in the parents - therefore they satisfy the needs of the child and learn for themselves that the child then stops screaming.

Infants cry out of hunger, loneliness or pain. In childhood, screaming turns into the defiant phase in which toddlers learn to cope with feelings of anger and aggression. Eventually, later in life, children cry out of intense emotion or pain. They learn that shouting can express dominance, which is why the voice is often raised in arguments or heated discussions.

The more young people learn to find their place in society, the more carefully they will use screaming if it is not for pure communication over greater distances. In adulthood, screaming has a strategic use. It expresses dominance over the interlocutor and can be a valve to control high emotional stress.

While the pitch can still be controlled when calling, this is no longer possible when actually shouting, so that in adults it is often not communication that is in the foreground, but dealing with emotions.

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Illnesses & ailments

Screaming can become a problem even in infancy. So-called cot babies cry more often and more than other babies their age. Sometimes their crying has a specific reason, other baby cribs cannot be calmed down by anything and cry for hours without their parents being able to help them.

Most of the time, however, there is a tangible reason for excessive screaming that a screaming clinic can track down in order to remedy the situation. Physical causes such as pain that is not visible from the outside may be an issue; sometimes dealing with the baby differently can reduce the crying. Crying babies usually develop this problem in the first few weeks and months of life; excessive crying occurs less often in childhood.

The defiance phase can become difficult again, as some children have a harder time learning to deal with anger than others. The reason for their screaming is then more understandable for the parents, but it is no less nerve-wracking and can put an extreme strain on the parent-child relationship.

In childhood and adulthood, frequent screaming is usually the result of problems coping with strong emotions such as anger and aggression. Affected people did not learn enough to deal with it in childhood and now use loud screaming as an outlet. Sometimes other aggressive behaviors are associated with their problem, which they display more quickly than other people under comparable emotional stress. Such problems often appear for the first time in adolescence, but there are also children who react unusually aggressively.

Less noticeable are adults who are less aggressive but who yell at their interlocutor with unusual speed.They too have not learned to deal with emotions such as anger in any other way, and therefore use the raised voice to achieve their dominance in the conversation in a simple way. With targeted psychotherapy, they can be helped to express anger in socially acceptable ways and to find ways to deal with it less aggressively in order to remain calmer when talking to others. People who react often and quickly with screams in conversation usually have problems in everyday communication and therefore seek treatment as soon as they recognize this connection.