Thoughtful Thursday: Helplessness

Understanding Helplessness

Imagine a person being stuck inside a box. He jumps, pushes the walls, tries to climb. Nothing works. He gives up hope of ever getting outside of the box. This is helplessness. It might still have been possible to get out of the box, had the person continued to try, perhaps exploring different ways. However, that potential is lost because he stopped trying.

• Helplessness is when a person believes they’re incapable of influencing a situation. For example, being unable to improve bad grades or issues within a relationship.

• It is a learned belief. It is often a result of repeated failures that leads a person to stop trying because they have given up any hope of success.

• It is understandable for a person to feel helpless because initiative takes effort and when these initiatives are leading to no foreseeable result, the body finds it more adaptive to conserve that energy.

• However, this can be problematic because sometimes these initiatives matter to us and contribute to our goals. This is why helplessness has a negative connotation. It is associated with lower motivation, lower moods, and passive behaviour.

• Learned helplessness can be understood in terms of locus of control:

1. External locus of control: belief that the outcome is due to events outside of one’s control such as other people, fate, chance, etc.

2. Internal locus of control: belief that the outcome is due to events within one’s control.

People who have an internal locus of control believe in their ability to influence what happens to them, at least to some extent. This belief leads them to take action that improves their situation. In contrast, an external locus of control will lead to an impasse because the person takes no action.

• Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) attempts to identify the negative thought patterns in learned helplessness and modify them.

Relationship to PDs

Helplessness can exist in many forms in our daily experience. They may also be present as components of a personality disorder that contribute to or maintain the symptoms. Few examples (note that these will not hold true for everyone with the concerned personality disorder):

• Dependent personality disorder (DPD): helplessness in taking care of themselves which leads them to rely on others excessively.

• Antisocial personality disorder (APD): helplessness in functioning without harming others.

• Avoidant personality disorder (APD): helplessness in getting involved with people due to past experiences of rejection or criticism.

• Borderline personality disorder (BPD): helplessness in maintaining stable relationships and emotions.

Few things that might help when you’re dealing with Helplessness

• We feel helpless when we believe we can’t change a situation. However, in general, we possess a great deal of ability to make changes. We seek help from others, get to know about how other people deal with the same issue, make tiny changes until they lead us to a better overall result, and so on. Believing in yourself can make a great deal of difference when you’re feeling helpless.

• When possible, refer to how others succeeded in what you are struggling with. Get to know about what they did differently.

• Get to know about the origin of your helplessness. Why do you think you can’t do it? Work through the thoughts you come across. Are you being too harsh on yourself at any point? Try to treat yourself like you would treat a close friend.

• Journal the negative thoughts you have when you feel helpless. Put everything down as you feel it without much judgment (to encourage free expression of all thoughts) then reflect on the whole thing when you’re done.

• Make sure the goals you’re setting for yourself are achievable in a realistic way. Break them down into smaller goals when possible.

Questions

Q1. When was the last time you felt helpless? What did you do in that situation?

Q2. Any other thoughts about the topic?

References

APA Dictionary of Psychology. (2014). APA Dictionary of Psychology. Apa.org. https://dictionary.apa.org/learned-helplessness

Pryce, C. R., Rüedi-Bettschen, D., Dettling, A. C., & Feldon, J. (2005). Early-life environmental manipulations in rodents and primates: Potential animal models in depression research. Handbook of Stress and the Brain - Part 2: Stress: Integrative and Clinical Aspects, 23–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0921-0709(05)80048-3

Seligman, M. E. P., & Peterson, C. (2001). Learned Helplessness. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 8583–8586. https://doi.org/10.1016/b0-08-043076-7/00378-8

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