We can feel hopeless and powerless when we experience chronic abuse or repeated obstacles. You may feel trapped in poverty or in an unhappy relationship. You could either be dealing with your own addiction or someone else’s who feels 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’s 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 hopeless outlook and “learned helplessness,” we don’t seek or accept help and can sink into depression.
The investigation
Learned helplessness was a term coined by Martin Seligman in the 1960s to describe a mindset in which 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 light shock to condition it to expect a shock after hearing the bell. He discovered that after a while, upon hearing the bell, the dogs reacted with fear as if they had received an electric shock, even though they had not.
Human behavior is similar. For example, if you were lied to or betrayed, you become suspicious. You might imagine that you are disappointed 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. The dogs could easily climb over a low fence on the other side and avoid the bumps. However, the dogs did not! Instead, they gave up and went to bed. He then electrocuted different dogs in a divided cage that had not been previously conditioned with the bell and electrocution. These dogs quickly jumped to the other side of the fence to avoid the scare. This proved that the set of conditioned dogs had learned to be helpless. Another example of this is the practice of chaining young elephants to a post. 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 think they are always the problem, they lack the motivation to improve, try again, or try new things. This negative self-talk reflects internalized shame and also perpetuates it. They found that we perform better simply by 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 their behavior on other people. They undermine their partners’ self-esteem with emotional abuse, such as belittling, withholding, and covert manipulation. When confronted, they often escalate or threaten further abuse or become violent. The undermining of self-esteem and relentless abuse create learned helplessness in victims, who over time adapt to the abuser with submission and avoidance to minimize the abuse and feel safe. Where at first they might have gotten angry and protested, they eventually realize that this tactic often backfires. They numb their feelings, become anxious and/or depressed, and may develop physical symptoms. As fear and shame grow, they don’t believe they can leave and become a shell of who they were before. This pattern is exacerbated by intermittent reinforcement where accommodation becomes an addictive behavioral pattern.
Helplessness learned in childhood
Many codependents develop learned helplessness in childhood. As young children, we actually depend on our parents for survival, not just physically, but emotionally as well. We quickly learn strategies to stay safe and minimize our parents’ distress. When a parent is neglectful, emotionally absent, judgmental, controlling, or abusive, we not only feel insecure and develop feelings of inadequacy and shame, but we feel powerless to be heard and to have an impact. These parents communicate, “It’s my way or the highway”; “I don’t care” or “You are a burden.”
A narcissistic mother or father, some other mentally ill or addicted parents ignore, shame or control their children, sending the message that their feelings, needs and desires are not important. Children’s anger, distress, or protest can also be shamed or punished. They feel powerless, internalize their shame and anger, and often turn to drugs or addictive behaviors. Some children rebel, but that can lead to further crackdowns. They develop learned helplessness and negative internal attributions that follow them into adulthood. Sometimes they experience independence in late adolescence and early adulthood, but 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 taunts a weaker one. I remember my older brother tickled me until I was out of breath and crying. This established the belief that he was defenseless and then I didn’t fight back 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 unremitting 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. Your confidence and self-esteem suffer. They don’t believe they can do better and expect to fail. They stop trying and often give up. 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 systems, 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 brains are malleable, but it requires therapy to challenge negative internal attributions and cognitive distortions. Change requires therapy that addresses our thinking and beliefs. Cognitive behavioral therapy is effective in overcoming shame and altering our brain and attitudes. A therapist also supports us in assuming new risky actions that modify our negative preconceived ideas. As our self-esteem and confidence grow, we become self-esteem in action. Suppressed energy is released. We develop a positive feedback loop, where we expect positive results and then experience them. When we don’t, we refrain from shaming ourselves. We consider doing external attribution and changing what we can.
You can start to make progress on your own by overcoming perfectionism, which can fuel shame and negative feedback loops, self-criticism, guilt, shame, and reading.
©Darlene Lancer 2021
