Social-skills training: An initial appraisal.

Abstract

Social-skills training (SST), a subset of the psychoeducational model of treatment, is defined as directly teaching clients interpersonal skills necessary for everyday living. The literature comparing SST with traditional insight-oriented therapy suggests that SST is equal to, and possibly superior in, effectiveness. Possible problems with social-skills training models, such as too narrowly defining the client's problems, expecting the approach to be a panacea, and the possible lack of generalizability, are elaborated.Several years ago, the psychoeducational model of therapy for clinical and counseling psychology was outlined and advocated by Authier, Gustafson, Guerney, and Kasdorf (1976). Today even a cursory survey of articles indicates that increasing numbers of practitioners are working within a psychoeducational framework, whether or not they conceptualize their efforts in such terms.Despite this surge in application, there has been a lag in the scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of the psychoeducational model, especially compared to competing paradigms. This article begins that evaluation by examining a major subset of the psychoeducational approaches-social-skills training (SST).The psychoeducational model advocates the direct teaching of specific skills for everyday living. It avoids the trappings of diagnosis, "patient" and "therapist" roles, and "cures." It also seeks to refine the concept of client improvement by making the goals-and thus the client's progress-more measurable than in alternate clinical paradigms.Two major skill-training psychoeducational approaches are interpersonal (socialskills training) and intrapersonal (cognitive-skills training). Specific training in overt interpersonal communication is the characteristic feature of SST that distinguishes it from the cognitive techniques of, for example, Meichenbaum's Stress Inoculation Training (1969), Ellis' Rational Emotive Training (1963, relaxation training, and problem-solving training. Cognitive systems train people to think or talk to themselves differently, whereas SST teaches people new skills for communicating with other people.Social-skills training, in turn, can be broadly or narrowly focused. Examples of narrowly focused social-skills training include assertion skills, parenting skills, dating skills, and job interviewing skills. Our focus here will be primarily on broadly focused SST, which aims to teach general communication skills applicable across a wide range of the client's social interactions.Social-skills training has its roots in the social psychology and behavioral therapy schools. Sullivan (1953) was among the first to highlight the role of defective interpersonal communication in mental illness, but the behaviorists (e.g., Eysenck, 1960; Franks, 1964; Krasner & Ullman, 1965;and Lazarus, 1961) were responsible for identifying specific defective communication, or "social" skills, among patients. Goldsmith and McFall (1975) highlight many of the features of the general psychoeducational model in defining social ...