Learned Helplessness?

I recently was reminded of the concept of “learned helplessness” which was coined by Seligman in 1975 and reformulated by Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale in 1978. Re-reading the two original works, I was surprised at how the term’s meaning seemed to have shifted in interesting ways.

The idea was initially that organisms learn that whatever they do does not matter if they are exposed to situations in which whatever they do does not matter. Ok, I admit that this is my slightly polemic way of pointing out the tautology that can exist in psychological research. The original study was gruesome: they tied up one group of dogs and gave them shocks that they could not avoid. Another group of dogs had a method of escape and learned this method. When the first group of dogs was given the same opportunity of learning a method of escape, they did not use the opportunity but accepted the shocks as a given.

Abrahamson, Seligman and Teasdale then found similar behaviors in other species with the ability to learn. In their view, the behavior of humans experiencing depression can be explained by their having learned that whatever they do, nothing will change their dismal situation. After experiencing trauma and helplessness which they could not influence, they started overgeneralizing and developed the belief that they cannot do anything to effect positive change. For them to get better, they would need to modify their beliefs and relearn that they can have agency and influence their lives positively.

In this description, the responsibility for “the faulty belief” is with the suffering individual. A practitioner (coach, counsellor or therapist) might see that they are overgeneralizing and might want to try and help them overcome their “trait” of learned helplessness.

If the theory is taken this far, there a potential for “victim blaming” and isolating the individual from their context by the practitioner and all pop-psychologists who have heard about it. I am sure this is not what the original authors intended.

To understand more about how this concept is used, I asked on our SolutionsAcademy alum WhatsApp group (yes, we have cool discussions there) what people understand when they hear “learned helplessness”, several answers confirmed my suspicion of a shift of “blame”.

- Learned helplessness is when someone learns that nothing they do matters and gives up

- Learned helplessness is when people give up motivation and stop being proactive after several failures

- Learned helplessness can also be a tactic to get other people to help you

None of these answers are “wrong” – but they do hint at responsibility or blame (“giving up”, “stop being proactive”, “get people to help you”).

When a coach (or other practitioner) uses the concept of “learned helplessness” in this way, they are in danger of falling into the trap of “thinking about” the client, rather than “with the client.” They might think they know what the client needs to do (i.e. fix their faulty belief) and then might try to find fitting interventions to make this possible for the clients.

For me, a more helpful focus than trying to “fix my client’s belief” would be to start by assuming that they have very good reasons to feel helpless. Maybe I am seeing more opportunities for change than they are, but from their perspective, they are not there. With my preference for thinking “with” my clients and my narrative and Solution Focused approaches, I might invite them to explore exceptions and unique outcomes. I would assume that if they come to coaching, they do have hope that something can change, and I would invite them to explore that hope in the direction of where they want to go.

The main difference is in my coaching mindset: I am not assuming that the client needs fixing. They are resourceful and whole, and I will treat them that way. This makes my life as a coach so much easier. I don’t have to “convince” my client that their belief of the world is “wrong”. I don’t have to teach them models to modify their responses. I can stay in collaboration rather than in pushing and pulling.

If you would like to explore these or other questions, learn about our courses or just hang out with us, why not join one of our free coaching meetups and exchanges?

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