Social Skills ???

[lyricalliaisons]

I was just wondering if anyone knows of any organizations, etc. that focus on helping adults learn social skills. I tried to find information through google, but have been unable to find anything that will help me. I found one local place, but it focuses only on people with Asperger's Syndrome/autism &, though I believe I have Asperger's I'm undiagnosed, so that will be of no help to me. I live in Ohio in the U.S., so I don't expect people to be able to give me any local information, but any at all would be helpful.

I was told once by a therapist that my only problem is that I have no social skills. While that is totally untrue because I'd still be terrified of & uncomfortable in social situations if I had social skills, having them might at least make things easier.

So, if anyone has any links they can post or organizations, etc. they know of to places that meet in person (because, though harder, it will be the best way for me) & teach social skills to adults, I'll greatly appreciate it. I can always see if any of the places have any chapters or anything near me.

I don't expect many people to reply to this post lol, but thanks, anyway .

 

[Anubis]

Cool, I live in Ohio too. Anyway, from personal experience, I think you are going to be on a wild-goose chase if you search for an organization to help "teach" you social skills. Because frankly, I don't think anyone on this forum actually lacks social skills. If we did, we'd all be a bunch of bumbling idiots who wouldn't be able to mutter a single sentence to each other.

If anything, most of us (including me) have an immense amount of anxiety that is preventing us from showing our innate social skills - the same ones that you and I are using to converse with each other at this very moment.

So the solution, in my opinion, is to find a way to remove this anxiety, so you inherent human skills can surface. There are many ways to do this but a common theme that I've discovered in EVERY individual who eventually gets cured of social phobia (at least on this forum) is a concerted effort to "quiet the mind" and directly confront their negative voice. Hypnosis is my favorite when it comes to quieting the mind, but there are probably an endless amount of ways to accomplish the same feat.

So yea, it's probably not what you want to hear, but I think you'll be saving yourself a lot of time if you just focus on removing the barriers that are blocking the immaculate set of inherent social skills that you already have rather than learning a series of forced/fake/contrived social phrases. It's much more longer lasting and fulfilling.

 

[meatcake]

^ I don't think that's necessarily true for everybody - some people might have been brought up in a weird environment and they never did learn proper social skills (ahem, like me). I have managed to overcome anxiety only to find out there were quite a few things I was still lacking. Like owning and understanding my own emotions without repressing them like my life depended on it. And all these weird personality quirks that I can trace directly back to the influence of my environment.

Unfortunately, it's up to parents to provide social skills, even if they don't have the greatest skills themselves. But in the good old days (um, back when we were hunter gatherers), the group would have a lot more influence on children, which would probably have evened out any weird influences. Anyway, I learned to be very well adapted to my family, but the 'real world', not so much.

So, that's why I'm gonna go to group therapy, because that seems to be the only place where you can get honest feedback and try to learn how to better interact with people. Otherwise it's just trial and (lots of) error, and that seems to take a LONG time!

But you're right that anxiety does block your ability to socialize, to whatever extent your current abilities would let you do that.

 

[Anubis]

^ Congrats. Glad to hear that you're having some success quieting your anxiety.

And what you described after that was eerily similar to the experience I've been having after quieting my anxiety. I knew my social skills still sucked, but once I adequately silenced my negative voice, it was like I suddenly had the drive to actively improve my social skills (instead of being fearful and avoidant). I'd almost describe the feeling to when we were toddlers and were desperately learning how to walk. We knew we sucked at walking because whenever we attempted to do so, all we did was fall over for about a year. But we still happily went through it because we weren't tainted with anxiousness yet (i.e. "What if I fail? Am I doomed to never learn how to walk?) and we were also fully confident in our ability to eventually succeed.

The way I "learned how to walk" with my social skills (so as to say) was to constantly be in the presence of friends while attempting to pick up on the social cues that were appealing to me. But getting this kind of interaction through regular group therapy would definitely work as well.

 

[extremecaseofSP]

I feel this is one of my main problems. For example I have no ability to hold an interesting conversation. I cannot remember the last time I had a long conversation with anyone. I have searched google for social skills for adults but most of the links that pop up are for teaching social skills to children not adults like me.

 

[klytus]

For example I have no ability to hold an interesting conversation.

Mh. But would the topics be within your personal interests otherwise? If not, then it's pretty obvious why you can't hold interesting conversations. Not having long conversations means that there either isn't much to say about it or someone stops saying whatever there is to say.

 

[toothpastekisses]

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[extremecaseofSP]

Mh. But would the topics be within your personal interests otherwise? If not, then it's pretty obvious why you can't hold interesting conversations. Not having long conversations means that there either isn't much to say about it or someone stops saying whatever there is to say.

I have not really tried when someone tries to start a conversation with me it ends quickly. The fact I lead a boring life does not help at all.