ABSTRACT
If coping skills refer to abilities to manage one’s inner world (that is, feelings, thoughts, impulses, cravings, bodily sensations), then social skills refer to the ability to manage one’s outer world. e most important element of the outer world is other people. Social skills include the ability to meet people and develop relationships, assert one’s own needs while respecting the needs of others, form relationships with dierent boundaries and levels of intimacy, solve interpersonal conicts peacefully, and manage expectations and demands imposed by other people and the environment. ere are books published with curricula for teaching social skills to distinct populations (Bellach, Mueser, Gingerich, & Agresta, 2004; McKay, Fanning, & Paleg, 1994). e distinction between skills for managing your inner and outer worlds is important in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) where the former are subsumed under the distress tolerance and emotion self-regulation skills training modules and the latter are subsumed under the interpersonal eectiveness skills training module (Linehan, 1993a, 1993b). is chapter focuses on what I believe are the most important social skills for most of our language and learning challenged (LLC) clients. ese are the skills of being able to solve conicts peacefully.
