Author Jason Schreurs takes a punk journey through mental heath with ‘Scream Therapy’ memoir

On May 1, 2024, author Jason Schreurs releases ‘Scream Therapy: A Punk Journey Through Mental Health’ via Flex Your Head Press. Order the book here.  

Picture this: Someone is screaming at you as loud as they can for 45 minutes straight. For most people, it would be the stuff of nightmares. For Jason Schreurs and members of the punk rock community, it’s therapy.

‘Scream Therapy: A Punk Journey through Mental Health’ follows the transformational journeys of Schreurs and the other punks he learns from, revealing the healing power of a misunderstood and underestimated music community. They come to a life-changing realization—punk rock helped them at their lowest points and never left their sides.

Coping with childhood sexual abuse and an undiagnosed mental health condition, Schreurs discovers punk rock as a youth and becomes part of its tight-knit scene. When a psychiatrist blindsides him with a bipolar diagnosis in his mid-40s, he embarks on a mental health discovery mission.

In ‘Scream Therapy,’ musicians, advocates, activists, and fans prescribe the punk subculture as a catalyst for mental health—a place where it’s okay to not be okay. Schreurs’ attitude and conviction pogo-dance off the page as he and others in the book claw through their worst days, seek stability, and support each other to live better lives, all to the soundtrack of pissed-off music. ‘Scream Therapy’ asks a crucial question. If punk rock can provide such therapy, why aren’t more people screaming?

More about the author
Schreurs is a music and mental health writer, host of the internationally renowned Scream Therapy podcast, mental health advocate, and self-proclaimed punk weirdo living in the qathet region of coastal British Columbia on the traditional territory of the Tla’amin Nation. He has contributed to Visions Journal (Canadian Mental Health Association),Transition Magazine (Disability Alliance BC), OC87 Recovery Diaries, New Noise Magazine, Noisey (Vice), Alternative Press, and Exclaim!

He is a recent graduate of the MFA in Creative Nonfiction Program at the University of King’s College. He feels most alive when he’s screaming into dented microphones and beating on his guitar like it’s a percussion instrument. His desert island band is—and always will be—Fugazi.