social skills training is designed to teach chronic mental patients how to succeed and cope in a wide variety of interpersonal situations, like discussing their medications with their psychiatrist, ordering meals in a restaurant, enjoying a day out with friends and family, saying no to offers to buy drugs on the street, reading bus schedules, learning to interview for jobs-behaviors that most of us take for granted and give little thought to in our daily lives. These set of social skills training would make the patient better able to cope with new social situations as well as be able to function normally in society and integrate accordingly.
For chronic mental patients, …show more content…
The rudiments of effective conversational skills are practiced-such as eye contact, adequate voice volume and intonation, proper pacing and fluency of speech , and demonstrative use of gestures and facial expressions. Some clients work on initiating new relationships , as in dating. An important component of sustained social interaction is giving and asking for information and opinions; this skill is taught systematically to those who are shy, withdrawn or who complain by sayin g , " I don"t ever know what to say". Learning how to give and accept criticism and praise is the focus for about 10% of the training goals. However , only about 15% of rehearsed situations deal with standing up for one"s rights. Actually, the training of chronic mental patients usually starts with the four basic social skills: listening to others, starting conversation , accepting criticism, saying NO to others properly.. Gradually, other skills s, such as anger management and friendship skills are introduced , along with leisure and recreational skills, medication compliance skills and