We can feel hopeless and helpless when we experience chronic abuse or repeated obstacles. You may feel trapped in poverty or in an unhappy relationship. You could or be dealing with your own or someone else’s addiction that you feel powerless to change.
You may be experiencing a debilitating health condition or repeated failures in school, relationships, or work. It’s easy to feel hopeless when you think there is no way out of constant pain and unhappiness.
Often there are solutions and steps we can take to change our circumstances and ease the pain, but with a desperate perspective and “learned helplessness,” we do not seek or accept help and we may sink into depression.
The investigation
Learned helplessness was a term coined by Martin Seligman in the 1960s to describe a mindset where you don’t try to get out of a negative situation because you learned in the past that you were helpless. In Seligman’s experiment, he rang a bell and then gave a dog a slight shock to condition it to wait for a shock after hearing the bell. He found that after a while upon hearing the bell, the dogs reacted with fear as if they had received a shock, although they had not been.
Human behavior is similar. For example, if you were lied to or betrayed, you become suspicious. You can imagine that you are being cheated on in a new relationship when you are not. Then you could react to your thoughts, get angry and falsely accuse your new partner or even break up. We think of this as projecting our past experience onto other present people and situations.
Seligman went further and put these dogs in a cage that was divided so that the impact only affected one side. Dogs could easily walk over a low fence to the other side and avoid being hit. However, the dogs did not! Instead, they gave up and lay down. Then, he surprised different dogs in a divided cage that had not been previously conditioned with the bell and impact. These dogs quickly jumped to the other side of the fence to avoid the impact. This showed that the conditioned group of dogs had learned to be helpless. Another example of this is the practice of chaining young elephants to a pole. As adults, they do not run away when the chains are removed.
Negative attributions
How we interpret events is important. People attribute causation to internal and external factors. Research reveals that people who consistently make global internal attributions to negative events, meaning they blame themselves regardless of the situation, develop learned helplessness. When they believe they are always the problem, they lack the motivation to improve, to try again, or to try new things. This negative self-talk reflects internalized shame and also perpetuates it. They found that we perform better just believing that we have control over negative stimuli, even if we don’t.
Learned helplessness and abuse
Power imbalances typify abusive relationships. Abusers seek power and blame other people for their behavior. They undermine the self-esteem of their partners with emotional abuse, such as belittling, holding back, and covertly manipulating. When confronted, they often escalate or threaten further abuse or turn violent. Weakening self-esteem and relentless abuse create a learned helplessness in victims, who over time accommodate the abuser with compliance and avoidance to minimize the abuse and feel safe. When they may have been angry and protested at first, they eventually realize that this tactic is often counterproductive. They numb their feelings, become anxious and / or depressed, and can develop physical symptoms. As fear and shame grow, they don’t think they can walk away and become a shell of their old self. This pattern is exacerbated by intermittent reinforcement in which accommodation becomes a pattern of addictive behavior.
Helplessness learned in childhood
Many codependents develop a helplessness learned in childhood. As young children, we actually depend on our parents to survive, not just physically, but emotionally as well. We quickly learn strategies to stay safe and minimize our parents’ discontent. When a parent is negligent, emotionally absent, critical, controlling, or abusive, we not only feel insecure and develop feelings of incompetence and shame, we feel powerless to be heard and have an impact. These parents say: “It is my way or the highway”; “I don’t care” or “You’re a burden.”
A narcissistic mother or father, some other addicted or mentally ill parents ignore, shame, or control their children, sending the message that their feelings, needs and wants are not important. Children’s anger, anguish, or protests can also be embarrassed or punished. They feel powerless, internalize their shame and anger, and often turn to drugs or addictive behaviors. Some children rebel, but that may lead to further repressive measures. They develop learned helplessness and negative internal attributions that follow them into adulthood. Sometimes they experience independence in their late teens and early adulthood, but they may marry someone who repeats their painful family drama. Before long, her learned helplessness returns.
This can also happen when a more powerful sibling repeatedly abuses or teases a weaker one. I remember my older brother tickling me until I was breathless and crying. This established the belief that I was helpless and then did not defend myself when I could.
Other consequences of learned helplessness
Learned helplessness creates a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop that can harm our health, job satisfaction, and relationships. It can lead to unhealthy habits where we neglect our nutrition and regular exercise. We may not seek proper medical and dental care, get addiction help, or manage our finances.
Learned helplessness can affect people trapped in poverty or experiencing constant prejudice. Beliefs can be passed down from generation to generation, creating a cycle of passivity and poverty. Students who do not perform well in school attribute failure to their own inadequacy. Their confidence and self-esteem suffer. They don’t believe they can do better and hope to fail. They stop trying and often quit. Similarly, learned helplessness and associated shame prevent us from excelling professionally and increasing our earning potential. It leads to depression and poor health. In fact, research shows that a pessimistic outlook can negatively affect inflammation, our immune system, and put heart health at risk.
Overcome learned helplessness
The good news is that this condition is not a life sentence. Low self-esteem is learned and also healthy self-esteem. Our brain is malleable, but it requires therapy to challenge negative internal attributions and cognitive distortions. Change requires therapy that addresses our thoughts and beliefs. Cognitive behavioral therapy is effective in overcoming shame and altering our brains and attitudes. A therapist also helps us take risks in new actions that change our negative preconceptions. As our self-esteem and confidence grow, we become self-empowered self-esteem in action. The accumulated energy is unleashed. We develop a positive feedback loop, where we expect positive results and then experience them. When we don’t, we refrain from embarrassing ourselves. We consider making external attributions and changing what we can.
You can begin to progress on your own by overcoming perfectionism, which can fuel embarrassment and negative feedback loops) self-criticism, guilt, shame, and reading.
© DarleneLancer 2021