by Brianna Cheney, M.A.
In a January 2015 podcast entitled “Fearless”, the writers of Invisibilia interviewed Jason Comely, the creator of “rejection therapy” — a social self-help game that challenges players to encounter all sorts of situations in which they are likely to experience rejection with the goal of overcoming their fear of rejection. For anyone familiar with RE & CBT, this “game” likely sound familiar!
Behavioral exposure has been a widely used intervention since the 1950s and Dr. Albert Ellis was known for helping clients overcome not only anxiety but also shame through creative homework assignments requiring clients to expose themselves to distressing emotions (e.g., shame attacks, rejection assignments). Dr. Ellis is famously remembered to have assigned one man with dating anxiety to get rejected by forty women before coming back to his next therapy session. Although such behavioral challenges may sound extreme, the point is that getting rejected forty times and living through it teaches the invaluable lesson that if you can tolerate the forty rejections, you can certainly tolerate one. Furthermore, many clients complete these challenges to find that experiencing the feared situation was not as bad as they thought it would be. In other words, the most effective part of these exposures is that they provide us with evidence that counters our distress-causing irrational thoughts!
Although scholars of RE and CBT might challenge the idea that Jason Comely is the “founder” of “rejection therapy,” CBT therapists would likely agree that the “rejection therapy” game is a creative and interesting way for individuals with social anxiety and or fear of rejection to expose themselves to their anxiety. For example, cards challenge players to ask random people on the street for chewing gum or ask friends for a ride to an inconvenient location. If you are someone who experiences social anxiety or fears rejection and you struggle to create your own exposures, this self-help game might be worth a try!