Learned Helplessness and Abusive Relationships

Let's try a few questions first:

Are you a victim of abuse, physical, mental, or emotional, and think that there is nothing you can do to change your circumstances?

Do you avoid blaming your abuser by justifying that he or she is helpless in controlling this behavior?

Do you think that you can just not improve your performance at work, school, or any other social setting just because you have failed in the past?

Are you extremely shy, anxious and depressed and avoid social situations just because you have had a few unpleasant social experiences in the past?

Well, these are only just a few questions that can easily be explained by the concept of learned helplessness.

The concept of learned helplessness was discovered in animal experiments by psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven F. Maier. These psychologists discovered learned helplessness in classical conditioning experiments.

In these experiments, animals are hurt by giving electric shocks repeatedly. They try to escape but they just can't. When the animal finds that he can do nothing to avoid the pain, he just stops trying to expend his energy in attempting to escape or change the situation. This helplessness is learned to the extent that when he is finally provided an opportunity to escape the electric shock, he just doesn't do anything. He just endures the discomfort quietly and does nothing to avoid the pain.

As you probably deduced from the above experiment, you learn to be helpless in a situation and do nothing to change it or avoid the pain even when you are presented an opportunity to do something about it.

Let's look at the answers to the questions asked in the beginning of the article.

So, you are going through physical, mental or emotional abuse in your relationship and you probably know that you can walk out of it anytime you want. Of course, it is not that easy. However, the crucial point to look here is do you look at reasons for staying in the relationship rather than quitting it? Where will I go? He will kill me if I do. It will end when he finds a job or when we have a baby or when we move to that new house...

Even when presented with opportunities to get out of this relationship, you just justify staying in it. You have basically learned to be helpless and no offers and help to change the situation seem to motivate you to get out it.

So, you have failed your math examination once, maybe twice, or maybe even thrice. So, you decide that there is nothing you can do to perform well in your examinations. Maybe even your parents have been reinforcing your thinking process. You are just not good at math and you will never be able to perform well at the subject.

When one day, you are presented with an opportunity to learn from someone who is an expert in the subject, you are just not motivated enough. You are just not good at it and no amount of help can do it for you. So, you have basically learned to be helpless in improving your performance.

Of course, this example can be applied to any school, work, or social situation.

You are shy. You have an unpleasant social experience. Your shyness is reinforced. You decide that you aren't good at dealing with social situations. You further withdraw into a shell.

So, even when you are presented with help to get out into the world and overcome your shyness, you just refuse because you think there is nothing you can do about it.

Anxiety, depression, and loneliness are other symptoms that are often exacerbated by learned helplessness. Just because you think that there is nothing you can do to change these, you end up feeling more anxious, more depressed, and lonelier.

Well, the first thing that you need to do is to accept that there is a problem and that it resides in you and not in your abuser, not in your parents who keep on insisting that you are no good, and not in that one single unpleasant social experience.

You focus on the problem and on the underlying beliefs. So, if your problem is an abusive relationship, you focus on the underlying beliefs that are forcing you to quietly suffer in silence. These are the beliefs and patterns that you need to work on.

It sounds quite simple but it is not that easy. Remember you are going against a system that you have accepted and have been following for a long time. If your abuser (your spouse, your parent, your boss) has you convinced that you are no good without him or her, it is time to take steps to be independent and show that you can indeed survive without this person. Your abuser may not like this. So, be prepared for some strong opposition here. This is especially true for women in abusive relationships.

To summarize, whether you are in an abusive relationship or dealing with depression, anxiety, or loneliness, it is time to ask yourself: Have I learned to be helpless in this situation? Keep in mind that the situation can be anything.

If the answer is yes, then it is time to question the underlying beliefs that have led to this learned helplessness and take steps to get back to living a better life.