Practicing Social Skills Training in Mental Health

Social skills training is a collection of various techniques which includes instructions, modeling, behavior rehearsal, corrective feedback, social reinforcement, and selected cognitive restructuring which can be effectively utilized to modify the social behavior of person with a broad range of interpersonal difficulties. Persons recovering from long term mental disorders tend to lose social skills though they may have residual skills which the mental health professionals need to identify and work upon. However, application of social skills training and approaches to the treatment of major psychiatric disorders is a challenge to the professionals working in the field of mental health. The present chapter focuses on the vital areas where mental health professionals need to focus with regard to building social skills while working with the persons recovering from mental disorders. Elucidating the very nature of the technique, it seeks to present social skills training as an essential and viable alternative to pharmacological treatment for treatment of persons with long term psychiatric illnesses. Person with social skill deficits, like an inability to express thoughts, feelings and emotions, arising either as part of the illness, or due to restriction of learning new opportunities to acquire, the chapter highlights how the technique can help the persons in treatment gain new social skills. Through case illustrations that entail the adoption of social skills as a technique, it elaborates the usage of the technique in holistic attempts to rehabilitate the client back into the mainstream of society.