Today, the therapeutic goal of psychiatric treatment is assumed to be 'recovery.' Here, the term 'recovery' has two different meanings. One is 'clinical recovery', which indicates actual and objective achievement of successful participation in society. The other is 'personal recovery', which denotes a subjective way of living that patients have learnt to actively participate in society irrespective of their condition.
 Social Skills Training (SST) is a support method that enhances patients' social communication and daily living abilities with the intent of facilitating their social participation or 'recovery.' Social participation or 'recovery' should be facilitated in the comprehensive framework of rehabilitation, normalization, and empowerment. However, SST is commonly administered in traditional ways such as using basic training models, problem solving training, and modules mainly aiming at 'clinical recovery.'
 As introduced above, SST is now expected to facilitate not only 'clinical recovery' but also 'personal recovery.' In order to accomplish this, we propose that SST should be administered to patients as 'personal recovery-oriented', with SST enhancing the realization that their own lives have positive meaning.
 For this purpose, attention should be drawn to spontaneous motivation, cognition, and the subjective meaning of symptoms. First, SST should be conducted based on the patients' hopes and desires, namely 'hope-oriented'. SST was previously administered as 'hope-oriented', but a more conscious effort should be paid in this direction. Second, ingenious attempts at strengthening the conscious and active participation of patients in SST should be highly encouraged, referred to as 'co-production.'Third, it is recommended for SST to be conducted along with intervention in cognitive function because enhancing cognitive function helps with effective learning of social skills. Fourth, SST should be developed to cover a wider range of symptom self-management. Some instructive SST modules for symptom self-management have already been developed and distributed. However, the usefulness of such instructive modules is often overlooked. Patients' attitudes toward symptoms are usually biased by subjective feelings, which hinders their objectivity regarding their symptoms and often detracts from the usefulness of instructive modules. Thus, existing SST modules should be complemented with additional treatment of subjective symptoms. The Self-Directed Research(Self Support Study or Tojisha-kenkyu)developed by patients at the Bethel House may be a complementary model. SST enriched by the four points described above will be termed 'e-SST' or empowered SST.
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