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07
Oct 21

The Importance of Communication Skills

Communication skills are a major component in the everyday life that we live in. According to an article, “Interpersonal skills were defined as the ability to work on teams, teach others, serve customers, lead, negotiate, and work well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds” (Parton, 429). We grew up learning communication skills from family, friends, and teachers and continue to expand our knowledge on communication skills as we get older. Since we are young children we learn through school and family the importance of communication skills. Throughout adolescence, skills are expanded and are expected to be better. Careers as well require everyone to have communication skills that build up their work career. Communication skills are like active listening, respect, friendliness, confidence, public speaking, and many more.

Since childhood, we learn many different communication skills that are a big part of our life. Some communication skills are like respect, friendliness, active listening, confidence, etc. According to the textbook, “Semin (2007) suggests that communication is the most fundamental topic social psychologists can address because it represents the foundation of social life” (Gruman 271). communication is a very important aspect in our life. Going to elementary school we learn to develop communication skills like respect and friendliness. We learn how to respect teachers, students, parents, and any person. For example, as I was a child, my school used to require a course in which we learned the importance of these skills in our daily lives. Respecting a teacher helps a student get good grades and have great communication with teachers and faculty. While students, for example, do not respect a teacher and keep talking over the teacher and not listening, it causes communication to become more difficult with each other. Another communication skill is friendliness in which as we are young we are more innocent and we become friends with other students easily. This skill helps students communicate with each other easily and being able to work with groups. If a student is not liked, he or she might be bullied or no student would want to be friends with him or her.

As we grow older, our communication skills expand and relate to our life even more deeply. We continue to learn different communication skills as we grow older. In college, we learn how to develop confidence, independence, and being open minded. Through specific courses, for example, we learn how to speak properly using the proper language, as well as having proper gestures. I took a communication course last semester where I developed more communication skills and learned how to speak more properly through presentations and group work. Through the presentations I was to express my interest with my words of choice but making sure I used the proper language and gestures while presenting. As well as giving me confidence through the presentation and speaking in front of a class. College also teaches a person how to become independent and be open minded through the different courses that we take. Being open minded helps a person think outside of the box.

College allows us to expand our skills and apply them to our work fields which require us to have certain requirements. For example, if a person wants to work as a translator or a teacher then good language skills are required in order to expand on to other students that are being taught. Another job that requires a skill is like a doctor in which confidence in yourself is important because you have to be confident in yourself to have a procedure done on another person. These skills apply to every career there are with many different communication skills. Study “found 49% of entry-level ads included requirements for basic skills related to communication, including reading, writing, listening, and speaking” (Parton, 430). The most important skill in the work field is body positivity and talking skills (whether verbal or non-verbal). Our gestures in the career field are important to have a positive communication set with others. Connecting to the ideas that we learned through the textbook, we notice the importance of verbal, non-verbal through messages that are being coded and decoded.

Communication skills are the process in which we give information and we receive in return through verbal or non-verbal gestures. These skills are being implied to our life since we are children through family, friends, and schools. As we grow older our skills that we learned, like respect, confidence, friendliness, continue to expand on in our lives. Colleges allow our skills to expand and become more prominent in our daily lives. Our communication skills continue to grow with us and fall in the work fields which help everyone in their communication asset with others. These skills are very important in our daily lives, whether in school, home, work, or anywhere. What are some communication skills that you think are most important to you?

 

References: Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE.

Parton, S. R., & Kinnick, K. N. (2005). Workplace communication: What the apprentice teaches about communication skills – Katherine N. Kinnick, Sabrena R. Parton, 2005. Retrieved October 07, 2021, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1080569905282099?casa_token=00lX3YLPq4EAAAAA%3AwIfxspcDV0JV6h8gZyLd38RJkm9QgyuLSZfX7ftXEbrV4qbc1dlBVCtnS_VyTCqPa_nDD-gw_AVN

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09
Feb 19

Animals: A Cure to End All Ills?

There has been plenty of research to support the idea that pets do have health benefits for their owners such as: lowering blood pressure, regulating heart rate, decreasing stress and anxiety, lower rates of depression, and increasing social support (Casciotti & Zuckerman, 2017). Because animals are known to help with stress, anxiety, and depression, there has been a recent interest in pet therapy in our country, especially in regards to students at college. According to a recent study, “over the previous six years, the number of students seeking counseling services increased by 29.6% and the total number of counseling appointments increased by 38.4%” (Green, et al., 2017, p. 50). There is a mental health crisis on college campuses, but maybe pet therapy could help.

Counseling services on campus aren’t enough to combat the rise of mental health issues in students, especially since many students do not feel comfortable using these services due to the stigmas surrounding mental health (Green, et al., 2017, p. 52). Colleges have found that Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) has helped in the regard as animals are known to help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression and most students are in favor of having pet therapy programs on campus (Green, et al., 2017, p. 52). Several studies have shown that having interactions with dogs significantly decreased stress in college students and in one study, results were seen after only ten minutes of interacting with the dog (Green, et al., 2017, p. 54).

There are some potential drawbacks of relying on animals for psychological health though. Stressful situations can occur at any time, but an animal may not be available for support at that time (Green, et al., 2017, p. 54). Many students have taken to having emotional support animals (ESAs) with them in their dorms, but ESAs do not have public access in the way that service dogs do, so the problem of accessibility remains. There are also the problems of phobias and allergies in regards to animals in public places and so schools must learn to balance the psychological needs of some students while respecting the fears and allergies of other students.

There may not be any perfect solution in regards to the mental health crisis on college campuses, but emotional support animals and pet assisted therapy could be good ways to start. In fact, some colleges are already implementing innovative therapy dog programs for their students. The Yale Law Library has started a pilot program where students can “check out”  Monty, the library’s new therapy dog, for 30 minute play sessions (Allen, 2011). The program started in 2011 and was a great success, so much so that other libraries are following suit and looking into getting their own library therapy dogs (Xu, 2015). Many of these universities, such as the University of San Francisco and Cornell, are bringing in dogs only on occasion, such as before final exams, instead of having the dog there for students all the time (Xu, 2015). No matter what the set up of the program though, the therapy dog programs have been well received by students who wait in lines to get a chance to interact with the dogs (Xu, 2015).

 

References:

Allen, J. (2011, March 24). Checking Out Monty: Yale Law Students Can Reduce Stress With Therapy Dog. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Health/StressCoping/checking-monty-yale-law-students-reduce-stress-therapy/story?id=13206568

Casciotti, D., & Zuckerman, D. (2017, March 31). Animals play an important role in many people’s lives and often help with therapy, rehab, etc. Learn more about the possible benefits of pet companionship. Retrieved from http://www.center4research.org/benefits-pets-human-health/

Green, McEwen, S., Wrape, A., & Hammonds, F. (2017). The Mental Health Benefits of Having Dogs on College Campuses. Modern Psychological Studies, 22(2), 50–59. Retrieved from http://0-search.ebscohost.com.library.wvm.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=130798576&site=ehost-live

Xu, Q. (2015, December 9). Yale’s therapy-dog program spreads. Retrieved from https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/12/09/yales-therapy-dog-program-spreads/

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27
Sep 15

Talk Among Yourselves…

Talk therapy had never been something that interested me. I certainly assigned the stigma of “only crazy people go to therapy” to the concept. But when the wheels came off the proverbial bus, I knew I had to do something to save myself and to save my marriage. Therapy saved me in many ways. It also introduced me to the version of myself I had been missing for a very long time.

Getting good grades came very easily to me all the way through high school. I was active in school activities and teachers appreciated my enthusiasm for school and my willingness to participate and engage in active discussion. I made it seem effortless. Unfortunately, I was successfully painting myself into a corner without realizing it. Assignments were completed, grades were given and everyone (including myself) thought that I would be a great college student. Unfortunately, the effortlessness of high school didn’t prepare me for the Socratic method preferred by most college instructors in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. College became a place of great anxiety for me. I was constantly trying to figure out how to please everyone and to figure out where I fit in. I struggled with a pervasive fear that the curtain would be pulled back and Dorothy (my college) would find out that the Great and Powerful Oz (me) was just a sham. In hindsight, I can clearly see the markings of a form of social anxiety disorder.

 

(Fleming, 1939)

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has described social anxiety disorder as a fear of embarrassment and/or fear of looking poorly in front of others (Social Anxiety Institute, 2015).  Here’s where I was a blend – getting up in front of people to speak in terms of a presentation, or getting up in front of the college marching band of 300 people didn’t faze me. But when I got into a smaller classroom where I felt unprepared or where I was concerned I would look stupid, I became a nervous wreck. I couldn’t speak up for myself. I couldn’t ask for help. I was paralyzed into inaction.  As a result, things got out of hand and I was asked by the college to please not return (translation: I failed out of school).

Fast-forward 15 years and I was a woman without a direction. I was married but I was in a constant state of insecurity. I was overweight, but didn’t do anything about it, and then complained when I felt like I was being ostracized for it. Leary and Kowalski (1995) developed a self-presentation theory with regard to social anxiety. The researchers concluded that individuals want to control public perceptions, because that will determine how others treat the individuals (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).  Bingo! Not only was I afraid that people would judge or criticize me, but I felt out of control if I could not somehow manage the environment or the perceptions. It created a great amount of self-doubt. On the outside, many people didn’t know I was struggling with this. I was able to socialize and in fact, I over-compensated and wouldn’t say no to any type of outing or event. Burying my fears and anxieties turned out to be the worst treatment. My husband became tired of my constant second-guessing of his feelings for me and it became clear that if I didn’t get help, I would be alone.

My therapist is a kind man and a listener that doesn’t seem to forget anything. He never told me his diagnosis of me. He would just encourage me to come back week after week. He would listen thoughtfully. Oftentimes, he wouldn’t say much at all during our appointments. When he did? Oh boy! He would ask me a pointed question or just say, “It must feel awful worrying about everyone else all the time”.  And each time he said it, I would drop back in my chair and breathe. Managing everyone else was not my job. I had to learn to listen to myself, figure out what I wanted and who I wanted to be. It was in that chair, staring at his diplomas from Bryn Mawr and The University of Pennsylvania that I realized that I wanted to finish my degree. It was in that chair that I realized that I could be happy with myself and not concern myself with the opinions of others to the point of inaction. It was in that chair that I found a love for myself and an inner peace – the kind of which I had never known. You don’t have to be crazy to begin therapy. In fact, I kind of think you’re crazy NOT to try it.

 

Fleming, V. (Director). (1939). The Wizard of Oz [Motion Picture].

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Social Anxiety Institute. (2015). DSM-5 Definition of Social Anxiety Disorder. Retrieved from Social Anxiety Institute: https://socialanxietyinstitute.org/dsm-definition-social-anxiety-disorder

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