Learned Helplessness

Dear Readers

Any idea what Learned Helplessness means?

I had my Psychology of Learning class yesterday and the lecturer touched on this psychological condition which I wish to share with you.

Learned helplessness is a condition when a person learns to behave helplessly, despite the fact that an opportunity has been presented to him to escape from the unpleasant situation or obvious chances are given to restore or avoid any harmful circumstances; he would choose not to react because learned helplessness has prevented him from further action.

It can also be interpreted as "giving up", "it does not matter what I do", "I can't change the outcome", "all that I do is futile", "I am not competent" and so on.

A typical example of learned helplessness is a child who performs poorly in mathematics test. After the test, he will quickly feel that nothing he does will have any effect on his mathematics performance, hence when he faces future mathematical assignments, he may experience a sense of helplessness. This inaction may prevent him from overlooking the opportunities to changes.

Learned helplessness are associated with different psychological disorders including depression, loneliness, anxiety, phobias and shyness. There are deeper and detailed studies on these disorders and ways to cure them.

Some of the proven ways to treat learned helplessness are to free our mind, change the habits of our thinking to think positively, be optimistic and fill our minds with hopeful thinking.