Learned Helplessness

Learned Helplessness

Many years ago, I began to follow the work of a man who would later become the father of Positive Psychology in America. His name is Martin Seligman and he works at the University of Pennsylvania. The theory of learned helplessness indicates that when people and animals are repeatedly faced with aversive situations in which they can exercise no control they learn not to struggle against the situation after a while. In other words, they learn to try to endure the situation rather than fight against it. This often leads to observable depression. It turns out that this reaction of tortured acceptance can generalize to other situations in their lives so that they begin to react to all adversity by giving up.


This is far more likely when people have a mental style of explaining the events pessimistically. These people see negative events as permanent. They believe that events will never change and that they can have no impact on forcing them to change. They may subconsciously or consciously believe that it is their fault or that they are fundamentally defective. The symptoms of depression associated with Learned helplessness can include: depressed mood, loss of interest in life or previous hobbies, passivity, inward hostility, weight loss/ weight gain, social and sexual dysfunction, and a sense of worthlessness. It affects motivation and achievement as well.



Learned helplessness can have a major impact on health and psychological functioning especially in terms of behaviours that maintain health. The best solution to learned helplessness appears to be Cognitive Behavioural counselling which can challenge the assumptions so that individuals may have breakthroughs in the way they consider their circumstances. The counselling can challenge the thinking patterns that say that the condition is permanent or that one has no alternative possible behaviours.

Seligman believes that much of life is our interpretation of events and that we can learn to interpret them to gain greater happiness. He is currently doing extensive work with Positive Psychology. He has a website called : Authentic Happiness.com and there you can log on and participate in his research by filling out any questionnaires that you might like to fill in. Some consider attachment to loved ones, life events, successes and failures that you have experienced and a wide variety of other measurement instruments. Doing some may lead you to understand yourself a bit better and perhaps furnish a few clues to your own functioning.