Learned Helplessness: A Deep And Hopeless Well
Learned helplessness is one of the most distressing states we can fall into. It is the perfect breeding ground for developing symptoms of anxiety and depression. In addition, it is a consequence and at the same time a cause of the lack of assertiveness (“Why cause a conflict expressing our opinion or our tastes if it is not going to serve any purpose?”), Turning us into empty bodies with a soul quenched to fight.
We could summarize this condition as “whatever you do, it will be wrong. ” Or whatever you do, it doesn’t matter, you won’t solve anything. The result will always be the same. And this is where the learned helplessness arises. Helplessness that we have learned as a result of having tried different ways of acting and verifying that these do not have any type of association with the result we obtain. Thus, not only does a set of responses end up extinguishing, but the initiative itself to respond also ends up disappearing.
You may have found yourself in this type of situation. At work, with a partner, or in an environment where you live. In this environment there is a person who is the one who judges whether what you do is correct or not. There is no common sense. There is no congruence. Whatever you do, whatever it is, will almost always be wrong and when it is right you have no idea how or why it is right, so you cannot repeat it, no matter how hard you try.
Learned helplessness makes us end up giving up control
Somehow, behind this incongruous attitude, we are hearing something like “I am the one who judges what you do. I make my own laws. Now yes, now not. Because I say so ”. People who cause learned helplessness are those who, having influence over the person who cause it, make a value judgment (it is right or wrong), without explaining it.
So … what reading does a person do when they receive all this? That it is not worth making an effort for a result that in their eyes is practically random. The feeling is that whatever you do, you cannot increase control over what happens.
This lack of control over what happens to us is distressing and very limiting. Since, apparently, we cannot reverse it. For example, this is the germ of many emotional abuse. “I decide how you are going to feel. You do not decide. You have no control, I have it. “
Although the solution is to flee, the learned helplessness prevents us
Martin Seligman already uncovered this phenomenon in the 70s. In an experiment that could not be carried out today due to its ethical implications (like many others in the history of psychology), he showed that dogs, when subjected to shocks regardless of their attempts to escape, ended up adopting a passive attitude towards them and “resigning” to suffer them in silence.
Quickly, a parallel was seen in this phenomenon with the causes and the attitude of many of the people who fall into the well of depression. Anxiety, depression, the absolute lack of motivation end up controlling the attitude and behavior of the person, until they lead to the most absolute passivity.
Thus, if an opportunity arises to change the course of the situation, they will not see it or will pass from it. Their faith and their hope have disappeared because they feel that whatever they do at the helm, they choose the direction they choose, they still do not see land.
This psychological phenomenon is very powerful since it totally hijacks our capacity for action. It hijacks our creativity to generate other alternatives and solve problems. It makes us unable to see solutions to our problem. Although they are already obvious solutions, such as trying to escape from a “place” where they hurt us.
Helplessness takes over our thoughts, behaviors and emotions
Hence, so many people feel unable to get out of a situation that is hurting them. Because they are totally conditioned by this helplessness that they have learned. Helplessness that takes over the thoughts, behaviors, emotions of those who have internalized it.
To break this spiral that is getting bigger and deeper on many occasions, you have to go to the root of it. We cannot stay on the surface, and iron out the small consequences of this phenomenon. Tell someone who is looking for alternatives, to get out of that jail they have entered, that … “How can you not see it?” It doesn’t help. None of it helps.
Since the person does not want to feel that way. He has not sought to feel that way. For this reason, this person has to understand what has led him to think like this, how he has ended up giving up control of what happened to him. The goal will be to empower her, to give her back control over her own life.
A control that he lost long ago. That she donated to fate or to whoever mistreated her, with her double messages loaded with incongruity and lack of common sense. But that control over his own life is his, and we have to work to give it back to him. Understanding what has happened to you and accepting it is the first step on this path. A path in which one reappropriates what is his own, what one day he left in hands that were not his own.
