Counseling for Psychosocial Skill Development

Psychosocial skills are a collection of knowledge, understanding, and behaviors that we collect throughout the course of our lives that all us to communicate effectively and harmoniously with others. Psychosocial skills include aspects such as our understanding of community and of collective social rules. All people begin learning these skills from a very early age and continue to learn and practice them throughout our lives, although some people may experience a more natural comprehension and mastery of psychosocial skills than others. Many people struggle with having good people skills, if this is true about you, we recognize that it becomes a challenge to interact with others, and it may be unthinkable for you to feel confident in social situations.

What makes up good social skills? Is it your talent? Your mindset? Your communication skillset relating to people? Do you make friends solely because of your attitude? Are you able to make and keep long-term friends? Confidence, integrity, impression management, and your state of being and happiness may be important factors to your personality and how you make and keep friends/associates. Psychosocial skills are an important part of daily life and can play a huge role in your overall satisfaction with yourself, your relationships, your workplace, and your larger community.

Psychosocial encompass the skillsets that we build to connect our thoughts and personality with how we interact with others.

Many areas of functioning make up what we know of as psychosocial skills. These skills may be just as important to survival and quality of life our as critical thinking skills. Some important skill sets that may help you establish good psychosocial skills are:

• Appropriate levels of attention.
• Mindfulness.
• Empathy/consideration.
• Forgiveness.
• Direction.
• Insight.
• Communication skills.
• Rational opinions of self and others.
• Mental health.
• Openness.
• Relatability.
• Welcomeness and empathy.
• Reality-based behaviorsHaving a lack of psychosocial skills can be a factor of instability in your daily life, and this could be causing other issues.

Psychosocial skills begin to develop in children incredibly early. You may expect some of these skills to show up in your children’s interactions with you as soon as three months old. Psychosocial skills are important at every age in life.

Even though psychosocial skills are learned and seem natural, it is still possible to build on these skills continuously. Counseling and therapy are practical ways for anyone to continue to build social skill sets and practice specific skills. Engaging in skills training with a trained therapist is a great way to strengthen life skills, self confidence, and relationship success if you or your loved one struggle in this area. 

At ThoughtWise, we can offer you and your loved ones the interventions that you need to begin building better psychosocial skills and skill sets. We specialize in treatment and improving brain functioning and mental health in individuals from ages 6 and up, children, adults, and the elderly. 

Some of the interventions that we offer that may help you or your loved one build the psychosocial skills that you need are:

• Role playing.
• Learning about communication skills.
• Practicing these skills in groups or with your counselor.
• Talking about your strengths and weaknesses, and planning to make adjustments in certain areas.
• The treatment of underlying problems.
• Cognitive-behavioral trainings.

Areas that you or your loved one may see improvements in, after partaking in interventions are:

• Gaining a better insight into your thoughts and etiquette.
• Being more aware of communication styles.
• Becoming more well developed in relating to others.
• Using facial expressions and nonverbal movements as skillsets.
• More often enjoying social interactions.
• Becoming more interested in social activities.
• Taking and receiving feedback more readily.
• Being more empathetic towards others.

Lower development of psychosocial skills has been shown to be linked to increased stress and loneliness. The negative feelings, experiences, and self-worth that can occur as a result of underdeveloped social skills can lead to more mental, physical, and emotional health. However, psychosocial skills can be strengthened at any point in your life. Spending time in the therapeutic environment learning these skills sets and practicing psychosocial skills can provide serious benefit you and your loved ones.

If you feel you or your child may benefit from counseling to strengthen psychosocial skills, please reach out to us to get started with your first appointment.