Social Skills Training for Adults

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I found a local psychologist who had a good grasp of what this is (or at least he thinks he does). Saw him yesterday and we are going to work on learning how to "do" small talk. A part of me is excited and another part of me wants to commit murder or suicide at the thought of learning how to "do" small talk.

This should be interesting to say the least. I will document what we do here just as an FYI.... IF (A big IF) I actually can handle this and stick with him and all....

I wish you luck in this. I, too, could definitely benefit from something like this but the thought of it also nauseates me. I know how you feel.

Cool, yeah, I'd love to see what you have to write about it.

So today was my first social skills session with the new pyschologist and the topic was small-talk. We had done an "intake" interview last week and decided that this was the right place to start for me. I want to just stop right here and say that I have seen 3 pyschologists now in the Portland area and ALL of them have no doubt I am on the spectrum and not a one was rude to me. I keep worrying that I am going to run into one of the many "quacks" that I keep reading about here but so far I am not seeing it at all. Also not seeing how DX is that complicated. Apparently all I have to do is be in the same room with a shrink and they label me. LOL!

Anyway...

He started the session by printing out the 3 areas of focus that I articulated I needed to work on and asked me to confirm them. Then he reminded me that I am already very sucessful in this world and the work we were doing was like icing on the cake sort of thing in the grand scheme. He stressed that the stuff I was to learn did not HAVE to be used but rather I COULD use it if I needed it in some social situations especially with respect to my work. I did not understand why this was important at the beginning of the session but by the end I knew why.

This guy is easier for me to talk to than my first one because he deals with Asperger people all the time and as such he knows how to keep the conversation a little more "real" for me. I liked my first one but he talked in a lot of very abstract (for me) concepts and we had to continually adjust our conversations which was always challenging for both of us. That said, he got me through my grief issues just fine so not complaining.

This new guy is really astute RE ASD from what I can tell and when he sees me struggling with a phrase (like I got stuck on "chip off the old block" and then again when he refered to people on the beach being "buff") he asks me to describe to him the process I am using to understand him. He specficially wanted to know if I thought in pictures (I did not know at first) and asked me to describe the pictures I saw if I did. This actually taught me that I do think more in pictures than I thought I did and also that I seek and process "nouns" in conversation. When he said "chip off the old block" for instance, I did not process that as a phrase and instead saw, pocker chips, potato chips, tortillia chips, cow chip and chocolate chip before it registered that chip and block were together. What was most fascinating to me is that it really did not take all that long (I only hesitated for a moment on the phrase) and most people would not have caught it at all but he had me stop and talk my personal process through for him in order to understand how I worked. This information was useful to him later when he was helping me to find words as he asked me to describe something in my picture.

After our initial conversation and my commitment to learning about small talk and doing his "activity" he launched into a bit of small talk conversation using himself as person 1, 2 and 3. Person 1 said something about having great BBQ at a place somewhere (I can't remember where). Person 2 then said something and person 3 said something else. As he was talking, he reached into his desk and pulled out these red, green and yellow cards. He then asked me if I understood the relevance of person number 1's statement to person number 2's statement. At that point I realized that I had to admit that I "zoned out" pretty much right away on that conversation. I was a tiny bit apologetic as I explained that I zoned out as soon as I heared the topic. He confirmed that I zoned out because it wasn't interesting to me or one of my interests. I nodded then and smiled thinking how smart he was to just get it like that. He patiently stressed the need to pay attention and started again.

Now I felt like a 5 year old and I leaned forward to listen...

He explained again how small talk is about conversation that is very high level and can go in a lot of seemingly random places and how the objective of the game was to pick up on what the first person said and to make a statement that tied to it somehow. He repeated the conversation between persons 1, 2 and 3. This time I listened (though I had to fight it). We spent the next 10 minutes discussing how person 1's statement and 2's statement tied. They both talked about BBQ food but person 2 brought the conversation to New Oreleans. He went into some depth RE that and I zoned again for awhile. The 3rd person made some comment RE trip to Hawaii. I missed the "connection" completely there and told him that was a completely random statement to me. He explained that N.O. and Hawaii are two vacation spotsso the third person was able to use vacation spots and make a 2-3 sentence statement that was acceptable. I had some trouble figuring the leap from BBQ to vacation but did not argue. At that point he finished stating that the conversation will often appear random but that is how small talk works. The rules of the game were that you take what 1 person says and you make a statement that you can tie to it somehow and you make that statement just 2-3 sentences. I was starting to feel pretty overwhelmed by this time.

Next thing we did was he handed me 4 red cards (called "chime in" cards) and we played a game of small talk. He made a statement and laid down a card, and my job was to reply to that statment applying the "small talk" rules and I got to lay down a card. The card thing assured that we did a round of 8 exchanges and also made it a very visual thing for me. Net is that this game brought me to tears. I really did not expect to SUCK this badly and it really drove home just how freak'n different (AKA weird) I really was. I struggled through 1.5 rounds of this with him helping me to give appropriate levels of conversation and prompting me many different times. In one of our scenarios we were discussing nutrition (one of my topics of interest) and he ask me to image that he was overweight. Then he made a statement that he did not really care too much about what he ate. I refused to comment at all in that conversation because there was nothing I could say to him that would not be offensive. So he helped me to figure out what to say. I said something very random but immediately wanted to pull it back as it felt so irresponisbile to say that as there was so much more information that needed to go with the phrase. He again reminded me that small talk was not to be "deep" level. I was clearly uncomfortable and very overwhelmed.

We pretty much ended it there. He did introduce me to the green cards which are "question" cards but we did not go into any games yet with that. He did say that the green cards had the 5 big question (who, what, where, when, how) and that the rules with them is that you have to fake/pretend interest if you laid one of those down. He mentioned that I would have to look at the person. I saw yellow cards and orange ones too. I am very worried how complicated this is all going to get. I was also very freaked out because I figured that I would more-or-less get this pretty quickly and right away.

He told me that he has seen worse and he thinks I will improve very quickly. I felt like I had just run a marathon when it was over and hardly had the energy to get out of the seat to leave. I never expected the session to be that hard....

Dayum....

Wow. Sounds like a lot of work. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. It's pretty cool how he seems to pick up on more subtle things like the brief hesitation with "chip off the old block"

Wow! That is really, really involved. I want to play!

My shrink does something similar (she is your old shrink's wifelady).. but never with so much structure. Next time I go I am going to ask if we can practice small talk with some more structure behind it. I can do small talk but whenever I insert meaning into meaningless statements, it is usually on accident, and I am usually when it comes down to it, just talking about how anxious/confused/lost/nervous/frightened/stupid I feel.

One point on which I am confused.. he said that small talk is very 'high level' conversation but that it was not supposed to be 'deep.' I usually think of high level conversation as being like.. conversation about the weather or some mundane subject, but with a very hidden meaning, or with personal meaning infused into it.. so it's got a deeper meaning but it is hidden. So.. what is the difference between high level and deep? Is 'deep' when you just come right out and tell someone what something means rather than trying to hide it behind layers of gobbledygook?

That was really interesting. Thanks for posting it for us. I am rubbish at small talk.

Today I had to go to a meeting with someone I know well (P1), and someone I had never met before (P2).

P1: "I'll leave you two to chat while I go get the coffee and tea"
<P1 leaves room>

P2: "So, it's a nice day today."

Me: "Erm, yes."
<awkward looking at desk, chair, floor, pen, paper, silence that seems to last for ages (but probably didn't)>

P2: "The drive down here took a long time today."

Me: ""
<silence - it's a statement of fact, what response is warranted?>

P2: "I'm new to this job, I don't really know what it involves yet"

Me: "I don't either"
<I know my job, I don't know her job, what can I contribute? ... more awkward silence>

P2: "So what is it that you do?"
Me: I explain in full detail, leaving no details out. When I finish it becomes apparent that lost P2 near the beginning of the first sentence.

P1: enters the room with tea and coffee "So, how are we doing?"

P2: "Fine"
Me: "Erm..."
<thinking, how are we doing what??>

That sounds just amazing. I wish that I could find someone like that. Thank you for sharing that.

I think that my conversation skills are not too bad. I just need to take things one level higher, and I'll be adequate. I just can't seem to do it by myself.

kfisherx,

That sounds pretty interesting.

One thing that surprised me too a couple of months ago was how much I didn't quite realize how much I do think visually, like, barely in language at all and how much work it takes to translate the images into words.

Another thing is that I do similar with metaphors. I have to stop and translate them when I hear them because of course the literal meaning seems inapplicable or often downright confusing. Some are so abstract that at best I have a general idea of where you put them in a conversation, and I don't even know what they mean without far more thought than should be necessary.

I am disappointed in the psych who did my disability evaluation in November, when she asked me what "Don't judge a book by its cover" means. First for asking me to define a metaphor with such cultural saturation. Second, for not noticing my hesitation (several seconds) to translate it into "what it means" and third asking me what it means rather than what my first thought is upon hearing it. I keep wondering if she would have diagnosed me right then if I'd given her my interpretation instead of a rote recollection.

The actual conversation work sounds pretty frustrating.

Thank you for describing the session.

I hope that it works out for you.

I would not want to learn small talk, its quite useless.

Sounds pretty interesting, actually. I think it'd help me out a lot. I get so lost trying to make small talk.

Thanks for posting this. I was offered social skills training, but I wasn't really interested in it since I don't really have the money to spend on something I've survived so far without. But I have been wondering what exactly it meant. I have no idea if what was offered to me would be the same as yours, but it's interesting to see some form of what it involves.

thanks for sharing, helped me!

i am also interested in improving my smalltalk, if anyone has some other resources to train that besides to do it in reality, please dont hesitate to point it out to me.

anton

There is one thing that's bothering me.

I have met many people (who were brilliant in their technical fields) who hardly used any smalltalk at all. Yes, they could give a basic "hello" when needed and ask for directions, but that was it. They could respond to questions that weren't of the "how are you?" variety, but they somehow managed to survive and even thrive.

For some reason, I'm not allowed to behave like these men or be genuinely enthusiastic or passionate about any topic that isn't "smalltalk".

I think it's good for people to treat others nicely, no doubt, but at the expense of expressing themselves, denying their perceptions of the world and hiding what they're really good at? I'm not so sure.

I'm a petrified that someone may ask me to go on an adult social skills course in the future. In my current situation, that's like asking someone with a deformed ankle (who's been bullied about their ankle and had their ankle kicked by their peers at school) to partake in a practice running race. Because you know, everyone has to be able to run because they just do you know.

I saw a documentary in about 1993 about social skills classes. It featured a very practical man who was supposedly struggling socially. I think that in reality, people were struggling to understand him and he was being forced into a role that just didn't fit him. I couldn't honestly see what was "wrong" with him or what he was saying "wrong". I felt very angry at the woman who was teaching the course. She seemed to be of a "completely different species" to the man. She basically told him that him that if he didn't know what to say, he should "be quiet". How is he supposed to express himself then? What about his freedom of speech?

I don't think that "social skills" are the real issue here.
It's real cultural clashes/misunderstandings and differences in underlying biology.

I think it's sad that other people feel the need to force people to behave in set ways that they are comfortable with. It's like they don't want to accommodate others.

I try, where I can, to respond to and accept people from different cultures.

That's all I can do, respond as sympathetically as I'm able.

I just feel that some of these so called "social skills" classes come too little and too late for some. A supportive and stable community surrounding a person is what's needed from the beginning. If someone is always surrounded by supportive, patient and helpful people, then "social skills classes" become unnecessary.

Going back to the analogy of the person with the deformed ankle, this person may need assistance from others to carry out daily tasks. There would be an understanding that this person might not be able to run as fast as others, but this would be accepted. The person would delegate tasks to others and likewise, those people would delegate tasks that they couldn't do (not involving running) to this person.

I wouldn't want to learn how to relate to people in an unnatural and irrelevant setting. I don't think it would be helpful for me. It would be incredibly depressing.

I am sorry that I am angry about this, but this is how I feel.

@AmberEyes

I think you make a good point. Maybe not all teachers of "social skills" have that attitude, but I would also be a worried about that (the view of woman teaching the social skills to the man). It's easy for people to fall into the trap of thinking, "I am the normal person and you are the non-normal one, so all the learning, adjusting, and adapting will be on your side," without even realizing they are doing that.

I think anyone ought to learn "social skills" like that if that's what they want. On my own I figured out small-talk to a small degree, but despite years of practice, too much of it (and that's not much) still results in exhaustion, a pounding headache, and having to fight overload the rest of the day. There should be some consideration that it isn't simply due to being uninformed, somehow. There are reasons why autistic people act the way they do.

There is the "tough-guy/the-world-doesn't-care so you have no choice" view, and there is a lot of truth to that, but ask anyone who burned out if they wouldn't do things differently if they had to live their life over again. You can squeeze a stone trying to get blood, but it may fracture before you get much moisture out of it. Having the other side do some adjusting is not always asking for something that's truly optional.

(That's not to say I didn't learn some critical things. Before, I couldn't even deal with clerks or librarians, and now that stuff is not a big deal.)

And the story about the deformed ankle: I remember seeing a program on TV about a guy who was born without arms. As a kid he taught himself how do everything with his feet, including, writing, eating with knife & fork, holding a can of soda (with one foot, even), and so on.

But in his teen years his doctor and parents wanted him to wear some mechanical, prosthetic arms. They were bulky, uncomfortable, and didn't work very well (the joints would seize up). He complained that they were uncomfortable and got in his way, but his doctors basically told him to shut up about it.

They were more concerned with his cosmetic appearance than functionality (which the arms actually reduced). (In the end he ditched the arms.)