Social Skills Training for Alcoholics and Drug Addicts: A Review.

<p> Investigations that have employed social skills training with skill impaired alcoholics and drug addicts are reviewed. General definitions of assertion and social skill and research related to social skills acquisition are presented. While use of skills training with these populations is at an exploratory stage, preliminary findings suggest the utility of this approach for enhancing interpersonal performance. However, these results should be interpreted with caution due to various methodological problems. Generalization and maintenance of training, transfer measures, interaction between treatment components and subject characteristics, and validity of role played assessment procedures are all areas that warrant further attention. Usefulness of a more global social skills concept and approach also is discussed; suggestions for future directions of research are offered. <dl> <dt> </dt> </dl> <dl id="x-x-x-x-x-COR1"> <dt> </dt> </dl></p>