Interpersonal Effectiveness Overview

In this and following sessions we will be covering skills for enhancing each type of effectiveness.
Objectives Effectiveness Skills (using skills to get what you want)
Relationship Effectiveness Skills (using skills to maintain/improve a relationship)
Self Respect Effectiveness Skills (using skills to maintain your self-respect)

These skills can help you:
   Take care of your relationships
   Balance priorities (your needs) with other's demands (other's needs)
   Balance wants (things that you want to do) with shoulds (things you ought to do)
   Build mastery and self respect

In order to learn these skills it is very important that you PRACTICE THEM.
There will be lots of opportunity to practice the skills in the sessions. You will also need to practice the skills outside of sessions. If something arises where you can ask for something, or say no....do so and try to use your skills. If nothing arises in your daily life, you need to dream up situations where you can practice. That is, do not wait for a situation where you can practice, actively search out situations.

List of Cognitive Distortions

ALL OR NOTHING THINKING:
You see things in black and white categories. If your performance fails short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
OVER GENERALIZATION
You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern.
MENTAL FILTER:
You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the ink that discolors the entire beaker of water.
DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE:
You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or another. In this way, you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS:
You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
MIND READING:
You arbitrarily conclude that somebody is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.
THE FORTUNETELLER ERROR:
You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already established fact.
MAGNIFICATION/MINIMIZATION:
You exaggerate the importance of things such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the "binocular trick."
CATASTROPHIZING:
You attribute extreme and horrible consequences to the outcomes of events. A turn-down for a date means a life of utter isolation. Making a mistake at work means getting fired for incompetence and never getting another job.
EMOTIONAL REASONING:
You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore, it must be true."
"SHOULD" STATEMENTS:
You try to motivate yourself with "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts", as if you need to be whipped or punished before you could be expected to do anything.
"Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct "should" statements towards others, you feel anger, frustration and resentment.
LABELING AND MISLABELING:
This is an extreme form of over generalization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him/her: "He's a louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
PERSONALIZATION:
You see negative events as indicative of some negative characteristics of yourself or you take responsibility for events that were not your doing.

Chain Analysis of Problem Behavior

VULNERABILITY FACTORS
(Contextual Events, Setting Events): Environmental events or series of events or important personal factors such as "states of mind", affective/mood states or biological factors) that reliably make the person more vulnerable to the efforts of precipitating events. INTERVENTIONS: Contingency management, self-management skills.

LEADS TO THE PRECIPITATING EVENT
(Environmental Precipitants, Triggers, Cues, Antecedents): Environmental events that precipitate the chain that leads to the targeted problem behavior. (i.e. Fight with house mate)
INTERVENTIONS: Core Mindfulness, Interpersonal Skills

LEADS TO THOUGHTS /ACTIONS CONSEQUENCES
Leads to thoughts /actions, feelings before, feelings after, consequences
(Self Invalidation ---- "I can't stand this!"
INTERVENTIONS: Increase self-validation, distress tolerance skills

LEADS TO EMOTION DYSREGULATION:
Shame/Panic, Sea of Dyscontrol/Active Passivity
INTERVENTIONS: Active Problem solving, exposure and response prevention
Impulsive decision to cut: cutting with razor:
INTERVENTIONS: Active Problem solving, exposure and response prevention
Consequences: immediate emotion regulation and communication of distress

DYSFUNCTIONAL LINKS
(Each thought, emotion, action, and event that linked the vulnerability factors and precipitants to the targeted behavior. A link is dysfunctional if it moves the client away from their long-term goals. Dysfunctional links might include any of the following:
DBT Skills Deficits:
Skill deficits in mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance related to problem behavior.
Secondary Targets

IDENTIFICATION OF TARGETED PROBLEMATIC BEHAVIOR
Secondary Targets to decrease: emotional vulnerability, self-invalidation, crisis generating behaviors, inhibited grieving, active passivity, apparent competence

EFFECTIVE BEHAVIOR:
Secondary Targets to increase: emotion modulation, self-validation, realistic Judgment, emotional experiencing, active problem solving, accurate expression and non-mood dependency
Variables Specific to this Person (in addition to above)
Any specific emotions AND/OR cognitive patterns, AND/OR action sequences that precipitate/support the targeted problem behaviors or inhibit/punish effective behaviors that could replace problem behaviors.

CONSEQUENCES
(a.k.a. processes of reinforcement, punishment, and extinction) Events or responses that are functionally related to critical targeted behaviors.
Assess rather that assume whether events are in fact reinforcing and/or punishing for this particular client and describe under what circumstances (context) these acts as reinforcers or punishers. Try to ascertain the most effective level of intensity and a punishment at a different level. The same can be said of the similar events in different contexts.

Reinforcers
(positive and negative) of problem behaviors. A common negative reinforcer is the reduction of aversive affective states. Also identify any positive reinforcers (things added to the environment) Note any relevant changes from reinforcer (things added to the environment). Note any relevant changes from reinforcers to punishment at different intensities or within different contexts.

Punishers
(aversive consequences) of effective behavior. Describe both punishments that currently control problem behaviors as well as aversive events that have been or might be used to control problem behaviors.

Analysis/Consequences

What exactly is the major PROBLEM BEHAVIOR that I am analyzing?
Vulnerability Prompting event Links Problem Behavior Consequences
Possible type of links: Actions, Body Sensations, Cognitions, Events, Feelings

What PROMPTING EVENT in the environment started me on the chain to my problem behavior?:
Start Day/hour:___

What things in myself and my environment made me VULNERABLE?
Start Day/hour___

LINKS: List actual and specific behaviors and events

LINKS: List new and more skillful behaviors

What exactly were the CONSEQUENCES in the environment:
Immediate: ______ Delayed:_________

What exactly were the CONSEQUENCES in myself:
Immediate: ______ Delayed:_________

Ways to reduce my VULNERABILITY in the future:

Ways to prevent PROMPTING EVENT from happening again:

What HARM did my PROBLEM BEHAVIOR CAUSE:

Plans to REPAIR, CORRECT, AND OVERCORRECT the harm:

MY DEEPEST THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ABOUT THIS (THAT I WANT TO SHARE):

Additional Notes From the Interpersonal Skills Module:

We will be covering two types of interpersonal skills in this module.
   Asking for things, making requests, initiating discussion
   Saying no, resisting pressure, maintaining a position or point of view

Everyone has these skills. The degree of mastery of these skills tends to vary from one situation, to the next. For example, some people may be quite comfortable saying no to strangers, but not to friends. Others may be able to say no to friends, but not to their bosses.
Deciding what skills to use, and when to use them.
Frequently people have good interpersonal skills, but are not sure when and how to use them. In order to decide what skills to use and when to use them, you need to know what your goals are in a situation.

Three types of Goals:

Objective Effectiveness: using skills effectively to obtain something you want
Relationship effectiveness: using skills effectively to maintain or improve a relationship
Self respect effectiveness: using skills effectively to maintain your self respect.