Learned Helplessness was a term that was coined by Martin Seligman and Steven Maier.  Seligman did a lot of behavioral experiments with animals. And what he found was that, when an animal received negative stimulus repeatedly, in a way that it cannot avoid the negative stimulus or cannot escape, then over a period of time the animal eventually stops attempting at avoiding the stimulus and will show behaviors of being utterly helpless in changing the situation.

This can be seen in people also in many different circumstances.  When a person is subjected to repeated failures or repeated trauma over a period of time, a person starts believing that they have absolutely no power or control over their situation. And hence they start behaving in a helpless way, and even if there are opportunities for them to change this situation or the outcome, they will not take actions accordingly.

A lot of other factors also contribute to learnt helplessness in a person.  Low self esteem, childhood experiences, other traumatic life experiences etc. The challenge with learned helplessness is that it can lead to depression, anxiety and other mental health challenges and that can in turn increase the feeling of loss of control and hence enhance helplessness in the person and still further damage their mental health.

Symptoms and the common associated to learned helplessness would be

Low self esteem, giving up on challenges quickly, frustration, feeling helpless, difficulty taking responsibility, lack of motivation, inability to ask for help etc.

Seligman says that repeated exposure to situations that are out of one’s control, results in deficits in motivation, emotional and Cognitive areas.

What it means is that, a person starts believing that situation is completely out of their control and will remain to be so.  And they lose their motivation to seek alternative solutions or approaches that may be available, which could alleviate their problem. And because this they remain in emotionally negative state feeling even more helpless and incapacitated.

For example in an abusive relationship, learnt helplessness is one of the key reasons why the abused partner is unable to leave or unable to seek help.

Abuse is all about power and control.  Abusive partner holds all the control in relationship and makes the other partner feel powerless and that they do not have any control of the situation. 

The abused partner might have been repeatedly told and blamed for the abusive behaviour. And over a period of time they start believing that they are responsible and somehow they only make the abusive partner angry and behave abusively. Though the abused partner may try many things to change their own behaviour to not trigger abusive partner, the abuse would continue to happen.  Subsequently this results in the loss of motivation to seek any other avenues for help.

Learnt helplessness can also manifest in multiple situations in life, could be in childhood,  education, work related problems, relationship issues etc.  It can lead to or aggravate depression, anxiety etc.  If left unaddressed, this can lead to severe mental health issues also.

How to deal with learned helplessness

Helplessness is learned, and hence it also can be unlearned.  In therapeutic approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy, we work with clients on all the three deficit areas.  At the Cognitive level the work will be upon their beliefs regarding their self, their situation and build corresponding resources that they need.  The clients will learn to regulate their emotions and effectively leverage their emotions in a way that assists them. Therapy also deals with the motivational challenges and enables them to make incremental changes and progress. Building resilience is a key part of the process as well.

Having said that, if there is severe clinical depression or anxiety, it will need to be handled with pharmacological treatment and therapy.

About the Author:

Kala Balasubramanian is a certified Counselling Psychologist/Psychotherapist with a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy, Diplomas in Counselling and has further certifications specializing in couple/marriage/relationship counselling and family counselling. As a professional counsellor she provides a supportive, understanding, professional and confidential environment to work with clients – Individuals and Couples explore their emotions, help them understand and manage their challenges, relationships and stress better.

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