Last month’s blog looked at “learned helplessness”, a kind of paralysis which can take over a person’s life in response to overwhelming stress. Martin Seligman, the researcher who first named the condition noted its association with pessimism along with a high risk for PTSD and depression.

He used 3 Ps to explain why people give up after being knocked about by life. They come to believe:

1. Adversity will always occur (is Permanent);

2. It will occur in all areas of life (is Pervasive) and

3. They are powerless to change it (is Personal).

This month, the good news. Martin Seligman, who coined the term “learned helplessness” also came up with the concept of “learned optimism”.

Really? Can optimism be learned?

Most mothers will tell you their children were born with either a cheery or fragile disposition. To some extent those traits are hardwired. Yet despite inborn temperament, the evidence is conclusive. Humans have the capacity, with effort, to adjust their disposition and enhance their own well-being. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_optimism

Seligman’s model presents a 5-step ABCDE sequence. Here’s how it might work in the case of Bridget, who I introduced last month. A single parent, she was overwhelmed with having to work, manage the house and monitor her children’s schooling in a pandemic

1. Adversity: she’s feeling stuck and overwhelmed, yet hasn’t reached out to her mother or best friend.

2. Belief: she predicts her mother and best friend will give unwanted advice and react impatiently to her complaints. She fears they don’t really care about her.

3. Consequence: the result of these negative beliefs is that she remains isolated, unheard and lonely and feels powerless to help herself.

Steps A, B & C present the dilemma. Points D & E outline what Bridget can do to overcome her feeling of helplessness.

4. Dispute: She challenges her assumptions, asking herself how certain she can be that they’ll respond the way she fears. She brings to times her mother and friend were attentive and helpful. She realizes she can’t really know how they will respond if she calls.

5. Energization: she begins to feel hopeful, that it may be worth reaching out. She notices that she’s still nervous. She’s vulnerable. It will take courage to phone – to share her pain and uncertainty. Only one way to find out - she picks up the phone.

The goal isn’t a quick fix, but to help empower Bridget to think about the situation differently. She can more energetically assess her options and thereby act to improve her mental health.

In his bestselling book Learned Optimism, Seligman suggests that people suffering from learned helplessness pay attention to the underlying thoughts that influence their emotions and behaviours and actively challenge their own hasty conclusions. His technique is a variation of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Seligman is NOT claiming we should always be optimistic. He recommends Balanced optimism, deciding NOT to choose an optimistic prediction if the risk of being wrong would be catastrophic. For example, Bridget might consider quitting her job on the optimistic prediction of winning the lottery. If the prediction is wrong, she could end up homeless, so optimism wouldn’t be wise. With respect to calling her mother or friend, however, the risk of being wrong would be no greater than a difficult conversation. It therefore makes sense to make the call.

Next month’s blog looks at “The Upside of Stress” by Kelly McGonigal. Her research concludes that meaning and purpose are enhanced by changing your relationship to stress – by choosing to make discomfort meaningful rather than trying to avoid it – and provides tips on how doing so can empower you to be strengthened and enriched by stress.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike MacConnell, founder of Reflective Mediation, is an accredited family mediator, conflict coach, educator and author. He is the highest-ranked mediator on Google in the greater Toronto area, with over 180 5-star reviews. To book your free consultation click here.

Bridget is a single mother, suffering in the midst of the pandemic. She feels overwhelmed by the weight of homeschooling her children while working from home at half her former wages. In addition to the necessities of shopping, cooking, cleaning and caregiving, she can’t stop thinking of how she dropped out of college, about the great job she lost, and how her marriage fell apart. After a sleepless night, her life seems to her like a litany of failures with no way out of the gloom. She worries she’s reached the breaking point, yet can’t muster the motivation to call her mother or best friend for support. She imagines they’re tired of her complaints and will just offer unwanted advice. She emails her ex to pick up the kids and crawls back under the covers, trapped and alone.

Many of us have felt something akin to Bridget’s emotional paralysis. You may have experienced a sense of futility that temporarily sapped your motivation. Often it resolves on its own. However, for some, “learned helplessness” becomes a permanent frame of mind, often associated with PTSD and clinical depression. People stuck in a situation, unable to change tracks.

The Oxford dictionary defines “learned helplessness” as “a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed and becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters, even if they are escapable”. The term was coined by Martin Seligman in 1967 after observing the behavior of dogs who lacked the initiative to escape following repeated exposure to electrical shock, despite being offered the opportunity.

Some of my clients express feeling this way in their family or work life. These are intelligent, well-intentioned individuals who may have felt overwhelmed by divorce, health issues, job-loss or stress at work. They are unable to visualize steps to improve their situation. There is no issue of blame here. Given a world in which external forces impose relentless, unwanted pressures beyond their control, the temptation to believe their situation to be hopeless is entirely understandable. But the sense of hopelessness mires them deeper. It blinds them from seeing the one thing they can control, which is their response.

“Learned optimism” is the answer, and Seligman has emerged as a world expert in the field. Along with other positive psychologists such as Kelly McGonigal, (see her TED talk and book: The Upside of Stress) a powerful movement has emerged making a convincing case that learned helplessness can be overcome, and that an attitude of balanced, realistic optimism can, with effort, be acquired.

Bridget may not be able to transform the circumstances that gave rise to her distress, but she can energize and transform her response. By challenging her automatic thoughts, by expressing her needs in honest, vulnerable conversations and by connecting with others she can shift the lens through which she sees herself and her world.

In next month’s blog I’ll present a more detailed description of practical steps to overcome learned helplessness, and not only to survive, but to grow stronger in response to unwanted stress.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR