Spaniards Sign Up for Destruction Therapy

Stressed-out Spaniards are being offered the opportunity to smash their way back to inner peace with the aid of a sledgehammer and a scrapyard full of abandoned cars.

They are calling it "destruction therapy", an innovative way to rid yourself of the tension caused by an overdemanding boss or complaining clients.

The destructoterapia sessions take place at a yard near the town of Lubia, 100 miles north-east of Madrid.

"The targets are the gurus of modern stress - the car, the computer and the phone," explained Jorge Arribas, co-inventor of the courses. "I've seen an information technology guy leave a computer in tiny pieces."

For €60 (£42) therapy patients are offered a sledgehammer, hard hat, overalls, goggles and, for a few euros more, some encouraging live music from a heavy metal band called Petardo Infecto, or Vile Creep.

It may sound an excessively violent way to cool your karma, but, said Mr Arribas, it works.

"This is not violence, it is anti-violence," he said. "Some people are so amazed by the damage they have wreaked that it makes them wonder if what they really need to do is change the way they lead their lives.

"It is better that they should take their feelings out on a car than on their families, girlfriends or other drivers," he added.

Although customers were free to let loose for two hours, none had ever lasted more than half an hour with the sledgehammer, said Mr Arribas. By then they were so exhausted, and their aggression so spent, that most were ready for that more traditional form of Spanish stress-release - a siesta.