The Ladder

A different way to see it

Exposure works when you repeat something at a level you can stay at. Start with the thing that costs you almost nothing. Repeat it until it is boring. Only then take the next step up.

The advice to “put yourself out there” skips every step that would have made the top one bearable. That is why it produces one bad night, followed by more avoiding than before.

What to do

Start lower than seems respectable

The right first step is one you feel slightly embarrassed to call an exercise. That shows it is low enough to repeat, and repeating is how this works. A step done once at maximum fear teaches you nothing that lasts.

Repeated and varied exposure, with a clear prediction to prove wrong, produces learning that lasts longer than doing the feared thing carefully once.

How it is organised

Being seen: you only have to be in the room. Speaking first: you say something short, and the answer does not matter yet. Staying in it: you keep the conversation going past the first reply. Asking, and being refused: you ask for something, and the answer can be no.

A plain list of seventeen frightening things looks like a wall. The stages show what changes from one group to the next, and that is what makes the top of the list look reachable from the bottom.

What to do

Finish one stage before the next

Do not try anything in stage two while stage one still costs you something. The order matters. Each stage assumes that the one below it has become easy.

The stages are our own arrangement. We grouped the steps to make them easier to read, and that grouping is not clinical. The principle of small graded steps underneath it is.

Step one

Before you walk into a room tonight, pause outside the door for one breath. Relax your shoulders, look up, and go in more slowly than your nerves want.

Hurrying through a doorway is the smallest version of what you do everywhere else: you try to get the frightening moment over with. It works for a second, and it keeps the fear alive for next time.

What to do

The easiest step, and one you keep using

It costs you only a breath, and you use it again before every step above it. That is also why it comes first. You need one exercise that cannot go wrong before you try any that can.

In the standard model of social anxiety, rushing through the moment you fear is a safety behaviour. It lowers the fear now and keeps it alive for next time. It also turns your attention onto yourself at the moment it should be on the room.

The rule

The rule is three logged attempts in a row at distress two or under. They do not need to have gone well. They need to have stopped costing you anything.

Success is the wrong thing to measure. A step can go very well and still have terrified you, and the fear is what you came to change. When the step becomes boring, the learning has happened.

What to do

Record how hard it felt, not how it turned out

Straight afterwards, rate how hard it was for you, from zero to five. Whether they smiled back is not the measurement. Whether your hands were shaking is.

Both numbers are our own judgement. Craske et al. (2014) show that exposure works through repeated and varied practice, not through one brave attempt. The exact rule of three attempts at two or under is our own way of applying it.

The top

At the top of the ladder you ask for something, and the answer can be no. Six steps are in that stage. They include asking for contact details, inviting someone to a specific place, trying again within a day, and collecting three refusals on purpose in a week.

By the time you reach this stage, you have been refused before and you know what it really costs. That is the only reason a target number of refusals is a reasonable request and not a stunt.

What to do

A target, not a dare

You can reach three refusals in a week by asking clearly and accepting the answer. You do not reach it by asking badly, and it does not get easier if you ask the same person twice.

Dropping your safety behaviours on purpose, and practising in different conditions, produces learning that lasts longer than doing the feared thing carefully.

Limits of the study: The target number is our own way of applying the principle. It is not a number from the paper.

If a step frightens you, you moved up to it too early. Go back down one step and repeat it until it is boring again. Going down is a normal part of using this ladder, and you can always do it. Nothing in the Rejection Room punishes you for it. The clinical point is the same: exposure does not work because you survive it. It works because you repeat it at a level you can stay at.

The second half matters more. This is graded practice for shyness and ordinary social fear. If what you have is bigger than that, if it keeps you out of work or out of friendships, or if you recognise it as a diagnosed disorder, this is not treatment and does not claim to be. See a professional. The same ladder, done with a clinician, is a treatment with good evidence. Done alone from a website, it is practice.