Cognitive Behavioral Social Skills Training (CBSST)

Cognitive Behavioral Social Skills Training (CBSST) is a program for middle-aged and older individuals in the community with chronic schizophrenia. The program teaches cognitive and behavioral coping techniques, social functioning skills, problem-solving, and compensatory aids for neurocognitive impairments. Consisting of 24 to 36 weeks of 2-hour group psychotherapy sessions (1 session per week), CBSST targets the range of multidimensional deficits that can lead to disability in middle-aged and older people with schizophrenia.

The social skills training component is based on modules for symptom management, communication role-play, and problem-solving social skills developed by Psychiatric Rehabilitation Consultants, a group of clinicians and researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles. The cognitive behavioral training component of CBSST was specifically developed for patients with schizophrenia.

Program Goals:

  • The primary goal of CBSST is to use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and social skills training (SST) psychosocial interventions to systematically help consumers with serious mental illness achieve their personal recovery goals. SST involves learning communication and problem-solving skills, and CBT involves learning to catch, check and change unhelpful thoughts that interfere with successful goal-directed skill performance in the community.

 

Target Audience:

  • Individuals with mental illness disorders

 

Program Description:

  • 18 sessions that are typically delivered on a weekly basis in either group or individual sessions

Program Delivery:

  • Clinicians

 

Costs to Implement Program:

http://www.cbsst.org/index.php/cbsst-implementation-training

Contact information

Reference Material

Granholm, E., Auslander, L. A., Gottlieb, J. D., McQuaid, J. R., & McClure, F. S. (2006). Therapeutic factors contributing to change in cognitive-behavioral group therapy for older persons with schizophrenia. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 36(1), 31-41.

Granholm, E., McQuaid, J. R., Auslander, L. A., & McClure, F. S. (2004). Group cognitive behavioral social skills training for older adult patients with chronic schizophrenia. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy. Special Issue: Cognitive Theory and Therapy of Schizophrenia, 18(3), 265-279.

Granholm, E., McQuaid, J. R., McClure, F. S., Pedrelli, P., & Jeste, D. V. (2002). A randomized, controlled pilot study of cognitive behavioral social skills training for older patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research, 53, 167-169.