By Dr. John J. Liptak, Founder, Life Skills IQ Institute

Most people understand that life skills are fundamentally necessary to live a successful, resilient, balanced, and fulfilling life. Life skills equip individuals with the practical tools, social skills, emotional intelligence, and psychological resilience needed to navigate life’s changes and mental health challenges. However, these skills are rarely taught in the family, in school, at work, or in the community anymore. John Liptak, in his bestselling book, Life Skills IQ, suggested that life skills are more important than traditional intelligence quotient (IQ) because they surpass traditional academic knowledge.

Facts About Life Skills

Current thinking in modern psychology suggests that intelligence about daily life skills may be more important than having a high IQ. Several reasons for this include: 

• All people have a Life Skills IQ, which is made up of skills, strengths, and deficiencies in varying degrees.

• Unlike the knowledge measured by traditional Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests, life skills can be learned or refined so that people can lead a successful, satisfying, and productive life. 

• Life Skill IQ deficiencies can cause people to get “stuck” trying to meet deficiency needs and can lead to mental health issues.

• As people meet their deficiency needs through more effective life skills, they can open up to increased growth needs (self-actualization and self-transformation).

• People can rewire their brains and reshape their personality plasticity by learning and practicing effective life skills.

Liptak suggested that therapists can teach clients critical life skills to build practical competencies, manage symptoms, reduce feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, develop and maintain supportive relationships, enhance overall well-being, and foster personal independence. The Life Skills IQ Training process is a unique framework that helps therapists bridge the gap between mental illness and mental health. In general, life skills programs have typically integrated life skills training into therapy by combining education, repetition, and the application of learning to help clients develop practical knowledge, skills, and abilities that improve daily functioning, mental health, and overall wellness. While this rudimentary process is effective, Liptak believed that a more sophisticated cognitive-behavioral approach to building life skills intelligence was needed to build resilience for long-term success.

Liptak believed that an effective therapeutic life skills approach needed to incorporate a mental health and wellness framework that focuses on integrating life skills therapy and cognitive-behavioral techniques to form a holistic mental health treatment model. With the Life Skills IQ mental health framework, Liptak asserts that people can build mental health skills to manage stress, sadness, anxiety, trauma, and DSM mental health conditions. This approach allows clients to manage change, overcome challenges, and remove problematic barriers that keep them from succeeding in their personal and social lives.

The Life Skills IQ Training Model

Over the years, John has integrated the Life Skills IQ Training process into all his Whole Person Associates mental health and wellness reproducible workbooks and card decks. Four cognitive-behavioral steps are bridging the gap from mental illness to mental health using four cognitive-behavioral steps to raise Life Skills IQ:

• Step 1 – Pattern Identification: Therapist administers self-assessments from the workbook to help clients self-reflect to identify unconscious habits related to the presenting problem, primary concern, or DSM diagnosis.

• Step 2 – Focused Storytelling: Therapist uses journaling activities in the workbook to uncover hidden patterns of life skills and personality issues, moving them from unconscious to conscious awareness.

• Step 3 – Intentional Upskilling: Therapist teaches life skills included in the workbook to help clients learn specific life skills, use repetition to rewire their brains, and move from mental illness to mental health.

• Step 4 – Habit Formation: Therapists use the activities from each chapter to help clients practice life skills to form positive attitudes, create healthy habits, and reshape their thinking, feeling, and acting (T-F-A) through personality plasticity.

The Life Skills IQ Training Model provides a process that empowers people to live mentally healthy lives.  This model is used in Whole Person Associates’ reproducible workbooks to help therapists guide clients develop greater life skill strength that can be used to address current mental health concerns and prevent similar concerns in the future.

Steps in Life Skills IQ Training & the Four Stages of Competence.

Martin M. Broadwell (1969) suggested that there is a specific process people use to learn new skills. This process is referred to as the Four Stages of Competence. Liptak’s Life Skills IQ Training process mirrors this learning process (Table 1).

Steps in Life Skills IQ Training	Four Stages of Competence
Pattern Identification	Unconscious Incompetence: Unaware of life skills and lack of proficiency.
Focused Storytelling	Conscious Incompetence: Aware of life skills but not proficient.
Intentional Upskilling	Conscious Competence: Learning to use life skills with effort.
Habit Formation	Unconscious Competence: Mastery to perform life skills automatically.

Table 1: Correlation of Life Skills IQ Steps & Competence Stages

Incorporating Life Skills into Treatment

Therapists can use the Life Skills IQ Training process in various ways:

1. Psychoeducational Groups

In these groups, therapists teach clients a variety of practical skills like communication, conflict resolution, time management, decision-making, stress management, and problem-solving. Group settings are effective because they provide a supportive environment where clients can receive feedback, practice life skills, and learn from others.

For reproducible workbooks to use with psychoeducational groups, please go to…

https://wholeperson.com/store/coping-anxiety-change.shtml and

https://wholeperson.com/store/positive-psychology-the-hope-series.html

2. Individual Therapy

One-on-one therapy sessions with a Life Skills IQ-trained therapist provide clients with a personalized approach. Therapists can use the four steps in the process to help clients identify unhealthy response patterns, find ways to tell their stories, teach more effective and efficient life skills, and form positive life-skill habits.

For reproducible workbooks to use for mental health and life skills training, please go to…

https://wholeperson.com/store/mental-health-stigma.shtml and https://wholeperson.com/store/mental-health-adults.shtml

3. Family Therapy

Family therapists diagnose and treat mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders within a relationship context. They focus on family dynamics that play a significant role in the mental health of family members. During family therapy, therapists teach vital life skills to critical family members, fostering enhanced communication, resolving conflicts, and understanding and navigating major life transitions.

For reproducible workbooks to use for family therapy, please go to…

https://wholeperson.com/store/family-counseling.shtml

This blog post is the first in a series that describes in depth the four steps in the Life Skills IQ Training process and how therapists can use them with the workbooks in psychoeducational groups, individual therapy, and family therapy.

References:

Broadwell, M.M. (20 February 1969). “Teaching for learning (XVI)”. wordsfitlyspoken.org. The Gospel Guardian.

Liptak, J.J. (2007).  The Life Skills I.Q. Test: 10 self-quizzes to measure your practical intelligence. New York, NY: Penguin Publishing.