Rehearsing Life: A Therapeutic Reflection on Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal

Watching The Rehearsal, I felt a strange combination of fascination, discomfort, and recognition. The show’s premise—using elaborate simulations to rehearse difficult conversations and major life events—starts as a comedic thought experiment but quickly deepens into something more existential, even tender. At its heart, The Rehearsal explores the longing for certainty and safety in an unpredictable world, a theme that resonates deeply with me both personally and professionally.

As a therapist, I spend a lot of time helping people imagine different outcomes: what might happen if they speak their truth, set a boundary, try something new. We rehearse too, albeit less theatrically. But Nathan Fielder takes this idea to its extreme, using actors, sets, and multiple timelines to eliminate every possible variable. It’s absurd, and often very funny—but also painfully human. What struck me most was how much of the show felt like an exploration of autistic experience, even if that’s never stated outright.

The desire to pre-empt and prepare for every social interaction, to avoid the shame of getting it wrong, to script and rehearse emotional truths before they're shared—these are not foreign ideas. For many autistic people, especially those who’ve learned to mask, social life can feel like a minefield. The idea of “rehearsing life” is familiar: watching others to learn how to act, trying out phrases in your head before speaking them aloud, imagining every possible reaction before you take the risk. Fielder’s obsessive preparation, his discomfort with ambiguity, and his tendency to analyse the logic of interpersonal moments until they lose their emotional coherence, all echo common autistic coping mechanisms.

And yet, The Rehearsal also shows how this kind of control is impossible. Life slips through the cracks. People surprise you. Children grow up faster than you can adjust the script. Fielder’s own emotional journey, especially in the later episodes, becomes the show’s most compelling rehearsal: trying to be a father, then trying to figure out whether his intentions were ever sincere. It’s uncomfortable to watch, in part because he holds so much emotion at arm’s length—another thing that resonates. I found myself wondering whether he was protecting himself, or simply processing things in a different register.

There’s a moment in the show where Fielder confronts the limits of simulation. No matter how carefully we prepare, we cannot perfectly predict others. We cannot fully protect ourselves from pain. And yet, the longing to do so—the need to feel safe before stepping into uncertainty—is profoundly relatable. Especially for autistic people, who may have learned through painful experience that spontaneity is risky, or that being misunderstood can have real emotional cost.

What The Rehearsal ultimately offers is not a critique of this longing, but a poignant portrait of it. It holds up a mirror to anyone who’s ever wished they could practice being a person before actually doing it. It’s about the tension between wanting control and needing connection. About how much effort it can take to feel socially “natural.” About how love, grief, shame, and empathy can’t always be rehearsed—they can only be lived.

Personally, the show left me sitting with my own rehearsals: the way I prepare for difficult conversations, the gentle scripts I offer to clients, the imaginary dialogues I carry in my head when I’m feeling unsure. It made me think about how deeply human these rehearsals are, and how they are not necessarily about avoiding life, but about approaching it with care. Sometimes, rehearsing is the only way we feel brave enough to try.

Fielder’s attempt to simulate human messiness only ends up highlighting its beauty. In therapy and in life, we eventually learn that no amount of preparation can make us immune to hurt—but sometimes, it can help us feel ready enough to step forward. And maybe that’s the best rehearsal of all.