NCJ Number
111041
Journal
Guidance and Counselling Volume: 1 Issue: 5 Dated: (May 1986) Pages: 35-45
Date Published
1986
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This paper outlines a structured training program based on the social skills model, called the Social Interactional Program (SIP), developed at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education for use as a general purpose counseling strategy.
Abstract
The intent of the SIP is to free persons from the control of certain social stimuli over their functioning resulting from prior socialization experiences. The instruction focuses on the development of certain cognitive skills rather than particular behavioral skills. These cognitive skills are related to the functioning of four basic cognitive/perceptual systems: observing, inferring, evaluating, and using language. In its program format, SIP is organized into eight or nine teaching modules. There are two phases to the training/counseling. Initially, the focus is on assessing or defining the client's difficulty: whether the problem can be appropriately understood in terms of social stimuli, what those stimuli are and how they affect the individuals and their relationships with others, and how the individuals had been socialized to react in that way. The second phase involves appropriate changes. This is primarily a desensitization process. The client first reappraises the significance of the troublesome stimulus by focusing on it and using rational analysis, followed by experimentation with alternative coping behaviors. After describing the SIP, this article reports on an evaluation (Shivrattan, 1985) of the use of the SIP with juvenile inmates. Overall, the evaluation indicates that program effectiveness must be further measured by more comprehensive research. 19 references.