Lena is a great cook, a great team leader, a great friend, and is always in a great deal of pain. Lena has two herniated disks and severe sciatica. Although Lena has many great things happening in her life, like being promoted to kitchen manager for a very prestigious restaurant, she carries a sense of depression with her. Bad things seem to follow Lena, as well, from friends passing away to accidents in the kitchen. I always see her in the kitchen throwing her hands up in surrender when things go wrong. It seems that Lena has learned helplessness. Learned helplessness was first attributed to clinical studies where dogs would stop trying to avoid an electric shock when they learned that no matter what they did, they would still receive a shock so they gave up efforts to avoid the stressor (Gacek, et al. 2017). In human application, it is said that learned helplessness is when a person basically gives up trying to improve their situation or control their environment (Nuvvula, 2016). They know that bad things are happening to them but there’s nothing they can do to improve their situation or stop the bad things from happening to them (Nuvvula, 2016). Symptoms of learned helplessness are low self-esteem, low motivation, low expectations of success, low persistence, not asking for help, attributing lack of success with lack of ability, and attributing success to things out of their control, such as luck (Leonard, n.d).
So, while learned helplessness seems to make life more difficult for Lena, how is this affecting her health?
In a paper by Christopher Peterson, he noted that learned helplessness can affect the person’s heart health, mental health, educational success or failure, aggression, difficulties in the lower class, altruism, and much more (1982). Looking at Lena, she has had many opportunities to treat her pain through free physical therapy from her customers and even just soaking in my hot tub anytime she wants. She constantly turns down any offer of help and a dark cloud of depression follows. Because she will not take advantage of any offer for relief, she misses work quite a bit and is constantly in fear of losing her position in the kitchen. If she loses her position in the kitchen, she is liable to lose income which will make her learned helplessness foster even more as yet another bad thing happened to her. The Peterson article continues that uncontrollable events precede the helplessness behavior and these events outside of the person’s control triggers this response of helplessness for any number of future events (1982). Something occurred in Lena’s life that she was not able to gain control over. This was such a powerful experience that it showed her that no matter what she did, she could not control the negative things that happen to her.
Many people who have this learned helplessness have a sense of guilt or self-blame, as they feel responsible for the events that they feel they have no control over (Peterson, 1982). When these events are internal sources, such as feeling “My life is always full of trouble” versus external sources, “healthcare in the United States is not very good for those without insurance,” the person feels a loss of self-esteem (Peterson, 1982). For Lena, she internalizes her struggles, rather than identifies that her struggles are not necessarily her fault so she has a sense of guilt for the pain she cannot escape.
Lena is not alone in feeling this way as learned helplessness is positively correlated to PTSD, depression, and health problems (Leonard, n.d.) . She has identified that she cannot control her pain and having a lack of control in her life can lead to even more tragic things such as premature death, tumor growth, drug use, alcoholism, depression, and even degradation of neurotransmitters and depletion of the immune system (Peterson, 1982). As seen in the Langer and Rodin article, when the elderly at a nursing home were given more responsibility for their own lives in the home, they flourished (Langer & Rodin, 1976). This learned helplessness prevents Lena from taking responsibility for what is happening in her life.
How can people like Lena seek help? The most effective treatment is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), where Lena’s thought processes and behaviors are challenged to create positive change (Leonard, n.d.). In CBT, the person will receive encouragement and support, explore what caused their helplessness and find ways to decrease those feelings, improve their self-esteem, and learn how to work through negative emotions (Leonard, n.d.). Exercise, meditation, a healthy diet, and mindfulness are generally suggested for people with similar symptoms, however their application has not been studied for humans suffering from learned helplessness (Leonard, n.d.).
It is difficult to see Lena suffering and I hope she can discover some tools to help ease her mental and physical pain.
Resources:
Gacek, M., Smoleń, T., & Pilecka, W. (2017). Consequences of Learned Helplessness and Recognition of the State of Cognitive Exhaustion in Persons with Mild Intellectual Disability. Advances in cognitive psychology, 13(1), 42–51. doi:10.5709/acp-0205-6
Langer, E. J., & Rodin, J. (1976). The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged: A field experiment in an institutional setting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(2), 191-191-198. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.34.2.191
Leonard, J. (n.d.). Learned helplessness: Examples, symptoms, and treatment. Retrieved September 29, 2019, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325355.php.
Nuvvula S. (2016). Learned helplessness. Contemporary clinical dentistry, 7(4), 426–427. doi:10.4103/0976-237X.194124
Peterson, C. (1982). Learned helplessness and health psychology. Health Psychology, 1(2), 153-168.