For some clients, a deep fear of rejection can prevent them from making real gains outside of the therapy session.
And as practitioners, unless we have a sense of how that fear is driving their behavior, we may not know how best to target our interventions.
So in the video below, Lynn Lyons, LICSW shares two ways a fear of rejection can manifest, and a strategy for addressing each.
Have a look.
Click here for full transcript
So, “I’m not going to take that risk. I’m not going to even order in a restaurant,” or, “I’m not going to go out anywhere where I might meet new people. I’m not even going to email my professors at college because they could read my email and reject what I’m saying.” So I see that as an avoidance.
Then the other way that I see it is that you’re so fearful of rejection, and socially anxious people don’t generally do this, they tend to be more sort of pull out of it. But there’s another way that it shows up where you’re so afraid of rejection that you will tolerate behavior in people that you shouldn’t tolerate. So you don’t really have good boundaries. You don’t have the ability to say, “Well, I don’t deserve to be treated that way, so I’m not going to continue this relationship,” or, “I’m not going to stay in this job,” or, “I’m not going to go to that gym where people say things that make me feel uncomfortable.” It’s interesting that you see it show up in those two ways.
What we need to do or what we want to do to help people with this fear of rejection is that, first of all, how do you tolerate judgment? Because human beings judge all the time. We are social creatures. We are designed to judge. We are dependent upon each other for our survival, so we’re always sort of feeling each other out. So how do we step in and tolerate the judgment of others? Sometimes it’s positive and sometimes it’s negative, sometimes it’s accurate, sometimes it’s inaccurate, but we don’t really have a lot of control over that. We can certainly control our own behavior, so how do we step in and do that? Then how do we help people, who have this fear of rejection, develop a better sense of boundaries? How can we help them articulate what they find acceptable and what they find unacceptable?
Interestingly, with people who are afraid of rejection, oftentimes they know intellectually where they would draw the line. They know what the boundaries are. Somebody might say, “Well, I’m not going to be in a relationship where I am physically abused,” or, “I’m not going to take a job where they’re going to pay me 70% of what my coworker is being paid when I have more experience.” So they can articulate what the boundaries are, but in the moment, they are very quick to discard those boundaries, or negate those boundaries, or lose touch with those boundaries, because being rejected, the fear of being rejected, becomes the primary motivator for them making decisions.
The way that you might see that is you might be talking to somebody who’s in a bad relationship or in a job that they don’t really find gratifying, or they have a boss that’s not really, you know, whatever, you get the gist. How do they know where they draw the line? Then they really need language, concrete language to set a boundary. So giving somebody the words, giving them the script, being very concrete in your teaching about that, is really helpful.
For more expert strategies on working with a fear of rejection, check out this course featuring Peter Levine, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Richard Schwartz, PhD; Ellyn Bader, PhD; Stephen Porges, PhD; and more.
Now we’d like to hear from you. What strategies have been helpful in your work with clients who fear rejection? Leave a comment below.
Fear of rejection could stem from real Persecution in the Bloodline. Mine does being a descendant from French persecuted Huguenots. Some of us are healing the Bloodline, 7 generations past, 7 generations in the future. Personally i use Mindfullness to transcend those emotions and i Dissociate to survive in the outside world. I would like to progress from that. But there seem to be more and more nasty people in this world that do reject other people. Currently living in a Neighbourhood which was built for railroadworkers but has changed to being bought up by Yups, which are hated by the original inhabitants. Before a similar hatred towards Travellers living in the Area. Trying to leave that Karma at their own doorstep and transcend my own persecution/fear to be murdered fears. I was a very unwanted child. No human alive can top that in rejecting me.
Clients who show a fear of rejection:
-Client describes x behavior.
-Clinician sees client’s motivation as a fear of rejection.
-Does the client see his or her behavior the same way as a fear of rejection?
– Does the client actually avoid contact with others or just fear contact but engages with others anyway?
-Does client describe the problem as a top down or a bottom up motivation to avoiding contact or worrying about contact being unpleasant and unmanageable?
-Realize that while the client is avoiding or fearing others he or she chosing to be by themself. Client is rejecting others.
-What specifically is the client rejecting and refusing to experience within themself in relation to others?
– Is the rejected experience a feeling or a thought or a layered combination?
This paradigm begins to unpack such a complex issue.
I find it useful.
–
Thank you for this brief overview. I am very familiar with her description both as a client and in family behaviors of pleasing. Helps my awareness day today, as other online presentations from your work. Linda
100% Disabled Combat Veteran — you could NOT be more accurate with this description. I agree wholeheartedly — but what do you do when you have a language disability & inauthentic people use your words to manipulate CLEAR boundaries you HAVE established — people in authority?
I’m always having my requested boundaries abused by my government & society, and even family.