Social skills training for depression and comparative efficacy research: a 30-year retrospective.
Social-skills coaching beat depression as well as pills or therapy in a tight 1980s trial, and we still under-use it.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The author looked back at a 1980-84 study that tested Social Skills Training for adults with depression.
The original team compared the training to both an antidepressant pill and to talk therapy.
All three groups met weekly over the study period in a hospital outpatient clinic.
What they found
At the end, the social-skills group felt as much better as the pill group and the talk-therapy group.
The training taught people how to start talks, say no, and ask for help—simple, coachable steps.
How this fits with other research
Loukus (2015) shows behavior analysts today still use the same coach-and-practice style, but for rumination instead of depression.
Kemmerer et al. (2023) warns that most training studies skip social-validity checks—E’s 1980s trial did the same, so we still lack proof that clients value the skills.
Li et al. (2018) finds BCBAs now rarely sit at the medication table; E’s old data remind us that behavior plans can stand beside meds, not bow to them.
Why it matters
You can pitch social-skills groups to adult depression cases without waiting for pill changes. Track mood and social acts together; if both climb, you have real-world evidence the skills work.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
By the late 1970s it was clear that cognitive and behavioral therapies were promising alternatives to antidepressant medications for treatment of depressed outpatients. One such model of therapy, Social Skills Training, was developed by Michel Hersen and his colleagues specifically for treatment of depressed women. Professor Hersen and his colleagues obtained funding from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct the first well-controlled randomized trial of this intervention, contrasting Social Skills Training, in combination with either placebo or active amitriptyline, against two active standards: amitriptyline alone and time-limited, psychodynamic psychotherapy in combination with placebo. The results of this study suggested that Social Skills Training (plus placebo) was at least as effective as amitriptyline alone or psychodynamic psychotherapy (plus placebo), with superior mode-specific effects on measures of social skill. The current narrative, which provides an autobiographical perspective of four critical years (1980-1984) in the early career of the author that were intertwined with the conduct and completion of this clinical trial, is an homage to Professor Hersen's talents as a supervisor, researcher, and mentor.
Behavior modification, 2012 · doi:10.1177/0145445512445610