Sample Psychoeducational Topics

The following are a sample of the life skills topics that we all face in everyday life that benefits particularly from psychoeducational learning. In the therapist’s resource page on this site you will be able to download therapy handouts, therapy worksheets and also therapy group exercises and activities.

Stress Management

Clients learn how to make stress work for them rather than work against them. They learn that stress in itself is not good or bad, and in fact stress can be quite positive. In learning practical strategies on how to be a stress manager and not a stress carrier, clients identify coping techniques that can help them manage their stress effectively and essentially “stress for success.” With the help of psychoeducational tips and tools, clients learn to transform their anxiety from holding them back to serving as a motivator. Stress management activities serve to reinforce and practice important stress management concepts in order to regulate emotion and anxiety in everyday life.

Interpersonal Communication

Clients learn the difference between healthy and unhealthy communication, and use these guidelines to improve their relationships at work and home. An example is learning the guidelines for the three types of behavior, Assertive, Non-Assertive and Aggressive Behavior. Using psychoeducational materials such as worksheets and handouts, getting practicing and reinforcement through experiential role play and communication exercises, clients learn valuable life skills that helps them improve their communication and thus improve their relationships with others. Effective communicators learn the difference between hearing and listening, and they improve relationships by being more effective listeners as well as speakers.

Positive Thinking Skills

Using the foundation of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), clients learn strategies of identifying irrational thinking from rational thinking, and learn how to replace irrational thinking with more rational thought. Through use of various handouts and worksheets, they get practice identifying the roots of their emotional discomfort such as depression and anxiety to irrational ways of interpreting the world. Clients learn in CBT how to change their feelings by changing their thoughts! By eliminating negative ways of thinking they are able to become more positive and more resilient due to improved control over their perceptions and attitude.

Anger Management

-The psychoeducational area of anger management helps people deal with their frustrations and anger in a positive way. Although anger is a normal human emotion, unbridled and unmanaged anger can lead to significant conflict and even abuse. For some, coping with extreme emotions become an acquired skill and involves recognizing and at times avoiding triggers for anger, as well as learning alternate strategies for dealing with intense emotions.

People Skills or Soft Skills

Confidence in speaking up in groups, overcoming public speaking, presentation skills and performance anxiety, team building in the workplace, are all examples of the general area known as People Skills. In fact, in terms of workplace success, people skills have been shown to be more important than technical skills in terms of job retention, promotion and satisfaction. Those who depend on people skills for their workplace success, such as in the areas of marketing, sales and customer service, can learn practical tips and strategies to improve their performance and reach business goals. Social and Emotional Intelligence are commonly known terms associated with people skills. Improving Workplace Communication, which includes removing communication barriers in the Workplace is a popular Workplace Wellness Training topic. There is an increasing emphasis in the workplace today on the importance of effective workplace communication, effective communication skills for Managers, as well as the people skills focus of effective leadership in the workplace. In the Psycho-educational resource section of this site you can download many therapy handouts and worksheets on communication skills.

Conflict Management

Strategies for managing conflict are not skills that people always learn from their informal education. Especially people who have been exposed in their own developmental years to significant conflict will have not learned often adequate skills for compromise and consensus building. Often a topic for workplace wellness trainings, conflict management at home and at work requires skills that can be taught and reinforced by psychological techniques and experiential exercises.