The different types of self-help skills include identifying issues that need solving as well as considering and choosing viable options for possible solutions. Learning to investigate and access resources and information are other types of self-help skills. Coping techniques and learning to take the initiative of when to seek professional help are other key skill areas. Communication and socialization can also be viewed as important self-help skills.
Joining a self-help group to meet people with a similar problem can increase one's sense of not being alone in his or her problem. Communicating and sharing stories and ideas about dealing with a troubling life situation or suffering with a disease is a skill that can pay off in the sense of feeling human and valued. Although most people intellectually understand that they can't be the only ones with a certain problem, many still feel that they are suffering alone and that no one could possibly understand what they're going through. Meeting in a group setting even once a week to exchange feelings and ideas may also increase one's self-help skills.
In many cases, a professional with experience in dealing with a certain disease or issue oversees a self-help group. He or she may teach group members techniques for self care or recommend self-help books for increasing coping skills. The different types of coping self-help skills include clearly identifying the problem and possible solutions in order to know when to seek professional help. Understanding what is possible to control and what isn't is a coping self-help skill that may be taught by an experienced professional in a group or individual therapy session.
Being able to choose reputable sources of help, such as national organizations focused on a certain disease, is an important type of self-help skill. People trying to cope with a certain problem, disease or situation don't need to risk being involved in a scam rather then receive needed help. An example of this is a company trying to sell them supplements that aren't proven to treat a condition and may be harmful to health rather than improve it. Differentiating research information from reliable sources from unproven claims can help an individual find products and services that are beneficial. Self-help training may include using a pro and con system when considering different treatments or other options; this kind of decision making is often used in teaching self-help skills to children.
