Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills Part 3

All posts in this series reference working through DBT® Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition, and all quotes come from that book unless otherwise specified.

This blog post continues to chronicle my takeaways from the Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills section of my DBT workbook. Parts of this section felt inaccessible to me as an autistic person or needed to be expanded upon or altered slightly to accommodate my autism, but the majority of the material was still helpful to me.

Building Relationships and Ending Destructive Ones:

Making Friends, An Overview:

I don't know about this section. I don't have a lot of trouble making and keeping friends, but my approach is certainly unconventional and quirky. I'm just my unconventional, very autistic, quirky self, right from minute one. I do the other things, like getting to know the person, talking to them, etc., but if they don't want to be friends with me when I'm not masking as non-autistic, I don't really want to be friends with them. I don't want to have to mask around my friends.

That being said, the book did have good advice on "the other stuff". According to the book, you can make friends based on proximity or similarity to the person. You should work on your conversation skills and do things in your life that give you topics for conversation. Self-disclosing should be done in the same measure that the other person is self-disclosing (which I overdo a bit, but don't think I want to change). You should also express a liking for the person you're trying to make friends with but without groveling, sucking up, using compliments to obtain favors, or complimenting things that are super obvious.

Joining a Group Conversation:

Sometimes, when trying to make friends, you might want to join a group of people who are having a conversation.
According to the book, a group that is open to new members joining will have the following features:

• "Everyone is standing somewhat apart.
• Members occasionally glance around the room.
• There are gaps in the conversation.
• Members are talking about a topic of general interest."

Personally, I find open groups hard to identify and intimidating to join unless someone I already know is in the group.
Closed groups that are not open to new members joining have the opposite features:

• "Members are standing close together
• Members attend exclusively to each other
• There is a very animated conversation with few gaps
• Members seem to be pairing off"

Once you identify an open group, the best way to join is to stand near a friendly-looking group member, wait for a pause in the conversation, and say something like, "Mind if I join?"

I personally find this method of making friends terrifying, although I will do it under certain circumstances. I prefer to find common activities to do together and then make friends gradually with group members. Some examples are support groups and community bands.

 Keeping Friends:

The book suggests using the observe, describe, and participate skills from the mindfulness section to maintain friendships.
Observe: You should be focused on others and not yourself, open to learning new information about them, nonjudgemental and not trying to be right. The book puts a big emphasis on not multitasking, but often multitasking, such as playing with a stim toy, is the only way I can self-regulate through an interaction.
Describe: You should give others the benefit of the doubt. Don't assume that you know what they think of you or what their motives are. Also, replacing judgemental thoughts with descriptive ones.
Participate: This is the hardest skill for me. It means to throw yourself into the interaction with the other person, not try to control how it goes, and become whole-heartedly involved with group activities and conversations. My autism and social anxiety both scream "overload" and "anxiety" at the thought of this.

Ending Destructive Relationships:

Ending destructive relationships is sometimes necessary. About a year ago, I ended my relationship with a very dear, long-term friend over irreconcilable differences in values, and when she reached out to me again this month, I had to make the same decision again. The book offers some steps for making sure that ending a relationship is the right thing to do and doing it skillfully.

1. When deciding whether to end the relationship, take emotional and rational considerations into account (WISE MIND).
2. Consider whether it might be possible to PROBLEM SOLVE in the relationship, if the relationship matters a lot to you and isn't destructive.
3. COPE AHEAD. Practice ending the relationship ahead-of-time. Troubleshoot any problems and allow emotions.
4. Use interpersonal effectiveness skills (DEARMAN, GIVE FAST) to be clear and direct.
5. Use OPPOSITE ACTION for love.
6. BE SAFE! If you are leaving an abusive situation or believe that the person might become violent if you end the relationship, reach out to local crisis resources for help. The National Domestic Violence Hotline phone number is 1-800-787-3224