Hello and welcome to The Healthy Coconut Blog. This blog is dedicated to bringing you information on trauma and trauma healing from a holistic perspective. I’m Gabbie Bodkin, a licensed mental health counselor, and this blog’s author. Today I’ll be sharing information on a psychological concept called "learned helplessness."
More specifically I’ll be talking about
The definition of learned helplessness and how it relates to childhood trauma.
Common personality traits and patterns that are a result of learned helplessness.
Ways to overcome learned helplessness.
This topic is important because learned helplessness often translates to many possible maladaptive behaviors- ones that were deemed necessary to learn at a given point in time and continued despite them no longer serving a purpose and causing more harm than good.
The oxford dictionary describes learned helplessness as "a condition in which a person has a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression."
What is learned helplessness?
Learned helplessness is exactly how it sounds...it's a learned response to the environment/situation that keeps a person in a helpless state.
Learned helplessness was first described by two American psychologists- Steven Maier and Martin Seligman. They conducted a study in 1967 where they placed dogs on an electrical shock pad (these types of studies are unethical and no longer allowed in psychological testing). There were two phases to the experiment and two groups of dogs that were tested. The first group of dogs were placed on the electrical shock pad and they did not have a way out. The second group of dogs were placed on the shock pad and could escape by pressing a button with their nose that would open a gate for them to cross over to the non-electrical side of the pad. Then in the second phase, both groups of dogs were placed on a pad that had a small barrier in the middle that the dogs could jump over to get to the nonelectrical side. The dogs from the first group did not even attempt to escape (learned helplessness), while the dogs in the second group demonstrated their ability to jump to the other side.
The conclusions from the study show that learned helplessness is a result of a passive response to trauma, not believing the trauma circumstance can be controlled, and significant stress during and after the traumatic event.
Children are more at risk for developing learned helplessness because they are less likely to have control over their environment. Children are dependent on adults to care for them and provide for them. They have very little, if any, control over their environment so if they are in an harmful or unhealthy situation, getting help is challenging. The justice system also can take a long time before a child is removed from an unsafe home and therefore learned helplessness is the likely result from childhood trauma- specifically when it includes forms of neglect, maltreatment, or physical, sexual or emotional abuse.
Common personality traits that stem from learned helplessness include maladaptive behaviors such as self sabotaging, avoidance, people pleasing, passive aggressiveness, lack of motivation, indecisiveness, insecurities, low self esteem/self worth, pessimistic attitude, etc.
These traits all stem from being stuck in an unhealthy situation/environment for too long. Psychologically speaking, the brain gives up thinking that a different outcome is possible when it repeatedly gets the same unpleasant results. So, instead of recognizing a patterned outcome and trying something different, it creates short cuts or maladaptive behaviors. Here is how the maladaptive thought pattern would look for a few of the listed behaviors. Also please keep in mind these are subconscious thoughts and the individual is most likely unaware of these patterns:
Self sabotaging - “I know this person is going to leave me so I’m going to just become the worst version of myself when I’m around this person so they will leave me.”
Avoidance- “I really want this situation to change and I could say/do something about it but I’m fearful the outcome wont change so I’m not even going to try.”
People pleasing- “I want people to like me because if they like me they wont hurt me so I will do whatever I have to in order to avoid any friction or to cause someone to not like me.”
Lack of motivation- “I feel awful and I know I’m always going to feel awful so what’s the point in pushing myself to do more?”
Indecisiveness- “I can’t trust my own judgement because I got myself in an unhealthy situation in the past so now I don’t know how to trust any decision I make so I wont make them at all.”
Pessimistic attitude: “Stuff like this ALWAYS happens to me….I have the worst luck..nothing will ever work out for me.”
Hopefully you can hear in these examples how difficult it would be to navigate life circumstances with these fixed mindsets. It can be mentally draining to arrive at these thought patterns, yet because they are the brains way of protecting the self from a feared or previously probable outcome, they are automatic responses.
How to re-wire the brain
In order to combat these types of thoughts and patterns of learned helplessness, you must first understand and normalize the fact that learned helplessness is a common result of unhealthy life events. No one chooses to experience adversity or trauma, yet the majority of people do have these traumatic experiences. Here are some ways to reverse learned helplessness.
Surround yourself with a positive support group. If you are exhibiting learned helplessness behaviors around people that are healthy and able to look out for you, it’s more likely that you’ll have someone to help you out of the fixed mindset and provide words of encouragement and love. When some of the maladaptive behaviors commonly push people away, you must also have some insight and do some interpersonal work to ensure you’re open to receiving love and support. This often can be very scary and uncomfortable. Your brain probably thinks that the more you care about a person the harder it will be when they leave you. It’s important to challenge this feeling and accept the love and relationship even when it’s uncomfortable. To some of you reading this, this concept may not make sense but when speaking about trauma even pleasant experiences can serve as triggers.
Practice positivity. Just as learned helplessness is a learned experience, learned optimism can also be learned. You can force yourself to practice this type of mindset daily. This can include making a list of 1-5 positive things that happened in your day and slowly work up. Once you’re in the rhythm of looking for positive experiences, you’ll eventually be able to experience them naturally without having to search so hard.
Process childhood trauma. In order to experience lasting change, it can be beneficial to process the trauma with a mental health professional. This will allow a safe environment to understand the “why’s” of the learned helplessness and to help you heal and extinguish some of the unhelpful behaviors.
Practice daily Self-Care. Learned helplessness often results in having a low mood and low self worth more days than not. If you can take care of yourself and ensure basic needs are getting met, that will be your foundation for resiliency and healing. Foundational self care includes getting proper sleep, fueling your body with nutrient dense foods, moving your body with intentional exercise which allows for natural serotonin and dopamine to release in the brain. Getting in the habit of prioritizing these three things can create positive change in every aspect of your life and they are at the root of having a healthy brain.
Thank you all for reading this post. As always, I hope you found this information useful. This information is purely intended to inform, not to treat. If you are struggling with brain health issues or childhood trauma, speaking to a healthcare professional is recommended to receive a specific plan for treatment and healing based on your individual needs.
I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, and I help adults heal from childhood trauma. Follow along for more self-help and psychoeducational tools on trauma and trauma healing from a holistic perspective. You can also check out my website, thehealthycoconut.com or Instagram, the_healthycoconut for more resources or to book a free consult with me. If you found this blog helpful, please like and subscribe to support these resources.
Safety Disclaimer:
If you find any of this information triggering or do not feel safe being alone with your thoughts, call a support person or 911 if you feel you are at risk of hurting yourself or others. .