Social skills and assertiveness: what they are and how to improve them

Almost all of us have a situation that trips us up: asking for a favour, sending back a dish that arrives cold, telling someone that something they did bothered us or, simply, joining a group conversation without going blank. It isn't a lack of manners or intelligence; these are social skills, and like any skill, some days they come more easily than others. The good news is that they can be trained. In this guide you'll see what social skills really are, what part assertiveness plays within them, why they sometimes fail and how they're worked on, step by step, in therapy.

It's no small matter. Behind many of the reasons people come to therapy — anxiety, arguments that keep repeating, the feeling that "I always end up giving in", loneliness — there is, deep down, a question of social skills and communication. And when someone learns to express themselves better, the improvement shows in almost everything else.

What social skills are (and what they aren't)

Social skills are the set of behaviours we put into action to relate to other people: asking, saying no, starting and keeping up a conversation, expressing what we feel, resolving a disagreement or paying a compliment. The American Psychological Association describes them as the ability to interact effectively and in a way that fits the context; you can see the exact nuance in its definition of social skills. The key thing is that they aren't a personality trait you're born with: they're learned behaviours, and that's why they can be improved.

Another idea that helps: communicating isn't only what we say. It has three parts that go together. There's the content (the words, the message); there's how we say it (the tone, the volume, the pace, the pauses); and there's the body (eye contact, posture, distance, gestures, the expression on your face). When those three things line up, the message gets through. When they contradict each other — an "it's fine" said while staring at the floor with a trembling voice — the other person takes in the outside part, not the words.

It's worth not confusing having good social skills with "being liked by everyone" or with talking non-stop. The most socially skilled person isn't the most charming or the most forward: they're the one who manages to express what they want while also respecting the other person, knowing how to read each situation. That's where assertiveness comes in.

Assertiveness: the middle ground between passivity and aggression

Assertiveness is the ability to stand up for what you think, feel or need in a clear and respectful way, without attacking the other person and without staying silent. The APA defines it, precisely, as a form of adaptive behaviour that combines respect for yourself with respect for others; here's its definition of assertiveness. It's best understood by comparing it with the other two ways of reacting when something matters to us:

• Passive style. You don't stand up for what's yours out of fear of conflict or of being a nuisance. You say yes when you want to say no, you swallow what you feel and then you're left with the sense that people take advantage of you. In the short term you avoid the tension; in the long term the discomfort builds up (and sometimes blows up).
• Aggressive style. You stand up for what's yours, but by steamrolling the other person: reproaches, a raised voice, sarcasm, sweeping statements along the lines of "you always" or "you never". You get your way now and then, but at the cost of the relationship and of how you feel afterwards.
• Assertive style. You say what you need while minding how you say it. You speak in the first person, you pin down the situation instead of attacking the person and you leave room for the other one to speak too. You neither stay quiet nor steamroll.

An everyday example makes it clear. A colleague asks you, yet again, to cover their Saturday shift. The passive response would be to agree so as not to look bad, even if you had plans. The aggressive one, a "you're always roping me in, you've got some nerve". And the assertive one: "I can't cover for you this Saturday, I've already got plans. If you need to swap more shifts, let's talk about it in good time". You're saying the same thing — no — but only the last one takes care of both sides.

Why they're sometimes so hard

If social skills are learned, it makes sense to ask why so many people find them hard. There's almost never a single reason; usually several come together.

The first is learning. As children we copy what we see. In a home where no one set boundaries, or where arguing meant shouting, it's hard to learn any other way. Lack of practice plays a part too: someone who had few chances to socialise as a child or teenager reaches adulthood with less mileage, not with a factory defect.

The second is anxiety. When a social situation frightens us — speaking in public, meeting people, complaining about something — the body goes on alert, the mind fills up with "I'm going to make a fool of myself" and we tend to avoid it. Each time we avoid it we feel relieved for a while, but we lose the chance to practise, so the next time is harder. It's the mechanism behind social phobia, and it explains why avoidance, which looks like the solution, is in fact part of the problem.

And the third has to do with what we think of ourselves. Beliefs like "if I say no, they'll get angry", "my needs aren't that important" or "I've no right to complain" push us towards the passive style. Those ideas often go hand in hand with a knocked self-esteem: it's hard to stand up for what's yours when, deep down, you don't believe what's yours is worth anything. That's why working on social skills and working on self-esteem often go together.

How social skills are trained in therapy

Here's the interesting part: it isn't about "having more backbone" or forcing yourself to be someone else. There's a method with solid backing, social skills training (SST), which breaks something that seems innate down into steps you can learn and practise. It's usually built into cognitive behavioural therapy and follows, more or less, this path:

• Assessment. The first thing isn't to practise, but to look. Which specific situations are hard: saying no, giving criticism, speaking in a group, flirting, making a complaint in a shop? In which ones do you turn passive and in which aggressive? The more specific, the better, because the training will be tailored to those situations.
• Psychoeducation. Understanding the three styles, recognising your own "assertive rights" (you have the right to say no, to change your mind, to ask for what you need) and seeing how tone, eye contact and body work. Putting a name to what's happening already changes a lot.
• Modelling. The therapist shows what an assertive response would look like in that particular situation. Seeing someone do it well — with the words, the tone and the posture — gives a far more useful model than an abstract piece of advice.
• Behavioural rehearsal (role-play). The heart of the method. The situation is recreated in the practice and the person rehearses it in a safe setting, as many times as needed. Getting it wrong there costs nothing, and repetition is what makes the new way of responding stop sounding strange.
• Feedback and reinforcement. After each rehearsal you go over what went well and what to adjust, always in a positive way and in detail. What's been achieved is acknowledged, however small, so the person repeats it in the right direction.
• Homework. What you practise in the session has to be taken into real life, starting with easy situations and working up little by little. This is where the change really takes hold: out in the world, not in the office.

It's not magic and it's not quick: it's training, like learning a language or learning to drive. At first you have to think through every sentence; with practice it comes out on its own. And that's exactly the goal.

Assertiveness techniques you practise

Within the training you work with some very specific assertive communication techniques. They aren't tricks for winning arguments, but ways of saying what's yours without breaking the relationship. The APA brings several together in its guide to assertive communication; these are the ones most practised in the consulting room:

• "I" messages. Speaking from the "I" rather than the "you". "I felt left out when you decided without telling me" connects; "you always ignore me" only puts up walls. Swap the attack-complaint for expressing what's going on with you.
• Broken record. Calmly repeating your position, without getting hooked into side arguments or over-justifying yourself: "I understand, but I won't be able to". It's especially useful when the other person keeps pushing or tries to turn it around.
• Fogging. Accepting the grain of truth a criticism may hold without giving up what's yours: "You may be right about that, and even so I'm sticking with my decision". It lowers the tension without you having to surrender.
• Learning to say no. A clear no, short and without ten excuses, is more respectful — to you and to the other person — than a grudging yes. You can say no and still take care of the relationship.
• Giving and receiving criticism. Asking for a change in behaviour in a specific way and at the right moment, and taking others' criticism without falling apart or jumping on the defensive. It's one of the hardest things and one of the most rewarding to master.

When it's worth working on them with a professional

Finding a conversation hard once in a while is perfectly normal. It's another matter when difficulties with social skills start to limit your life: you avoid plans, you can't set boundaries at work or at home, the same arguments repeat over and over, or you notice that the assertiveness you're missing is taking its toll on your relationship, your family or your health. When that happens, asking for help isn't overreacting: it's the sensible thing to do.

It applies at every age. In childhood and adolescence, working on social skills helps with shyness, isolation or bullying situations, and it's often done in groups. In adult life, it shows up tied to anxiety, to low self-esteem or to times of change (a separation, a new job, moving city). And sometimes the social difficulties are part of something broader — for example, social anxiety or autism spectrum conditions — where the training is still useful, but within a more complete approach. A psychologist helps you see what's underneath and decide where to start.

How we organise that work in the practice

If you're a psychologist and you support people with this, you know that a social skills programme runs on continuity. It's not a one-off chat: it's back-to-back sessions, with rehearsals, homework and close tracking of what's improving and what's getting stuck. And all that continuity generates logistics — appointments to schedule and remember, notes from each session, pending tasks, sometimes groups to coordinate — that, when it isn't in order, steals the energy you wanted to devote to the person in front of you. That's what My Psico Agenda is for.

It brings together in one place your practice calendar with automatic WhatsApp reminders — very handy when the reason for coming to therapy is precisely the avoidance of social situations, the appointment included — the digital clinical record to note progress and tasks session by session without losing the thread, the session-pack management for the multi-session programmes and, if you run group training, the organising of those appointments and rooms. All encrypted, with the data on servers in the European Union, and working on your computer, your phone and your tablet with nothing to install. The software takes care of the day-to-day; the actual work, of course, is down to you.