Learned helplessness.
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Join Date: Oct 2004
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Learned helplessness.
Do you think this is interesting in thinking about our behaviour with addicts and/or the addicts behaviour?
It's a theory that has stood the test of time and has be shown to be very rellevent to humans.
Reference, with hyper links to terms in the text.
It's a theory that has stood the test of time and has be shown to be very rellevent to humans.
A theory put forward by Seligman, based largely on some pretty nasty animal experiments, that the experience of being put in a position in which there is no possibility of escape from harm or pain can lead to an overall fatalism and resignation, in which it is believed that there is no point in trying to improve the situation. More generally, can describe a belief in one's own powerlessness, which renders futile any attempt to learn.
Typical experiments include the demonstration that dogs, confined in a cage where they have no possibility of escaping shocks from an electrified floor, no longer attempt to escape such shocks when the opportunity is presented (this bears a resemblance to the anticipatory-avoidance learning experiment): and that rats, which normally swim for 48 hours before drowning in a tank, only manage eight hours after having been held tightly and long enough to cease struggling before being put in the tank.
A comprehensive account
Learned helplessness, although explored largely within the behavioural paradigm, is a form of meta-learning, or what Bateson would call learning II (or even III). It sets out a general orientation towards learning rather than an account of how a specific item of knowledge or skill is learned or not.
Its particular relevance has been explored to various forms of depressive illness, but it also provides an elegant account of disaffection among students, who have "given up" on the formal educational process as a way of learning anything. They have lost (or never gained) any sense of the connection between their efforts in school or college and any meaningful achievement, and therefore (from the educational standpoint) the major task for them is to re-establish this link. On a wider front, the principle can be associated with the "culture of poverty" and the idea of a disenfrachised underclass.
Although the models could hardly be more different, there is a link with Mezirow's notion of "transformative learning": participants in adult basic education, for example, need to re-evaluate their whole position about their capabilities to learn, in order to be able to benefit from what is offered.
Typical experiments include the demonstration that dogs, confined in a cage where they have no possibility of escaping shocks from an electrified floor, no longer attempt to escape such shocks when the opportunity is presented (this bears a resemblance to the anticipatory-avoidance learning experiment): and that rats, which normally swim for 48 hours before drowning in a tank, only manage eight hours after having been held tightly and long enough to cease struggling before being put in the tank.
A comprehensive account
Learned helplessness, although explored largely within the behavioural paradigm, is a form of meta-learning, or what Bateson would call learning II (or even III). It sets out a general orientation towards learning rather than an account of how a specific item of knowledge or skill is learned or not.
Its particular relevance has been explored to various forms of depressive illness, but it also provides an elegant account of disaffection among students, who have "given up" on the formal educational process as a way of learning anything. They have lost (or never gained) any sense of the connection between their efforts in school or college and any meaningful achievement, and therefore (from the educational standpoint) the major task for them is to re-establish this link. On a wider front, the principle can be associated with the "culture of poverty" and the idea of a disenfrachised underclass.
Although the models could hardly be more different, there is a link with Mezirow's notion of "transformative learning": participants in adult basic education, for example, need to re-evaluate their whole position about their capabilities to learn, in order to be able to benefit from what is offered.
the girl can't help it
Join Date: Apr 2004
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This is an interesting article. Learned helplessness is one of the first things I personally found out about in seeking my own mental helath...
I believe that when we are dealing with the effcts of addiction we start searching far and wide for answers. Where did I learn my helplessness? In my family of origin...where did I learn to not be helpless? through counseling, Alanon,Naranon, and this forum...
When I started learning I had to learn the difference between my own learned helplessness and my powerless over the addicts and alcohoilics in my life....once I got that puzzle solved I was up and running.
I believe that when we are dealing with the effcts of addiction we start searching far and wide for answers. Where did I learn my helplessness? In my family of origin...where did I learn to not be helpless? through counseling, Alanon,Naranon, and this forum...
When I started learning I had to learn the difference between my own learned helplessness and my powerless over the addicts and alcohoilics in my life....once I got that puzzle solved I was up and running.
Ugh!
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Enchanted Elmoland
Posts: 180
Okay where do I sign up for this class?! Great article but taking it in to apply it to my life is certainly something else. I do feel at times that I am depressed in this situation that I am in. That is paralysing and I know others feel this as well. I want this or that, but I keep failing to be able to muster the strength to do it. Now I'm wondering if I learn this on a deeper level if I would be able to see that the solution is really there.
On the other hand, I'm thinking who would have the heart to do this to a dog! And then I think, who would do this to me?! Someone who "loves" me?! Don't think so...
Going now to explorer to find more on this, maybe just MAYBE it'll help.
Big Hugs,
~Faithchaser
On the other hand, I'm thinking who would have the heart to do this to a dog! And then I think, who would do this to me?! Someone who "loves" me?! Don't think so...
Going now to explorer to find more on this, maybe just MAYBE it'll help.
Big Hugs,
~Faithchaser
Ugh!
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Enchanted Elmoland
Posts: 180
http://www.unfetteredmind.com/articles/helplessness.php
This is one of the sites that I found, I have a lot to learn on this subject, time to dive deeper.
I just watched a movie last night called, "What the Bleep do we know" it goes into how our thoughts create our reality and actually our physical world by explaining something about quantum physics. Pretty neato stuff. Anyone else see this one?
Okay I have to go to work now. I have a lot to think about.
More Hugs,
~FaithChaser
This is one of the sites that I found, I have a lot to learn on this subject, time to dive deeper.
I just watched a movie last night called, "What the Bleep do we know" it goes into how our thoughts create our reality and actually our physical world by explaining something about quantum physics. Pretty neato stuff. Anyone else see this one?
Okay I have to go to work now. I have a lot to think about.
More Hugs,
~FaithChaser
Searching and tripping
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Back in my head
Posts: 1,194
Put into words what I had felt for years. There's no hope. I am helpless. No one understands. I wholeheartedly agree that it is a learned situation. Coming from a truly dysfunctional family and environment, negativity was normal. Anything indicating happiness, joy, or positive support had never been seen. When coming face to face with someone who was happy or had a positive outlook, we made fun of them and said they were crazy or weird. This was "normal" in our household.
So, this being inbred in us, wouldn't it seem natural for us to gravitate toward someone similar...the alcoholic/addict...eventhough maybe at the time, the disease hadn't manifested itself to it's fullest. What was learned, kicks into effect to find someone who is compatitable.
This came to mind...ever notice that when you hear someone divorced so and so, early in the marriage or in the early stages of the disease they're marked as being uncaring, selfish or didn't love the person they were divorcing in the first place. I can think back and remember such a situation and put it in it's proper perspective and see that the woman who divorced the "drunk" came from a family that I made fun of. A caring loving mother and father. No contention. Happiness and joy in the household. Because she came from a healthy environment, she made the conscious decision to get the he** out of the marriage that isn't healthy. What she learned in her early years was support, love, positive affirmations and all the stuff we're desperately searching for now. So this is the opposite of learned helplessness.
It took me a while, but I was able to make a connection between how I was raised and the years that followed. And it was definitely inbred. Thank God for therapy and other aids in helping me learn and grow and see the proverbial "light". Especially SR.
So, this being inbred in us, wouldn't it seem natural for us to gravitate toward someone similar...the alcoholic/addict...eventhough maybe at the time, the disease hadn't manifested itself to it's fullest. What was learned, kicks into effect to find someone who is compatitable.
This came to mind...ever notice that when you hear someone divorced so and so, early in the marriage or in the early stages of the disease they're marked as being uncaring, selfish or didn't love the person they were divorcing in the first place. I can think back and remember such a situation and put it in it's proper perspective and see that the woman who divorced the "drunk" came from a family that I made fun of. A caring loving mother and father. No contention. Happiness and joy in the household. Because she came from a healthy environment, she made the conscious decision to get the he** out of the marriage that isn't healthy. What she learned in her early years was support, love, positive affirmations and all the stuff we're desperately searching for now. So this is the opposite of learned helplessness.
It took me a while, but I was able to make a connection between how I was raised and the years that followed. And it was definitely inbred. Thank God for therapy and other aids in helping me learn and grow and see the proverbial "light". Especially SR.
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On the other hand, I'm thinking who would have the heart to do this to a dog! And then I think, who would do this to me?! Someone who "loves" me?! Don't think so...
Since it's discovery there's a great deal of human evidence to suggest that it's extremely relevent to people and most importantly reversable.
I think the most frightening part of this theory - the bleak side is to invisage more than one person dealing with learned helplessness within a relationship or family. As each effected member begins to withdraw from effort to escape pain, both their own and to those they love a bizarre cycle of behaviour could easily begin.
I think Al-Anon reattribution of responsibility to the individual works well against this, not just with the individual but also for those they are involved with. Concepts such as setting boundaries allow others to be made aware of what the consequences of their behaviour will be in advance of that behaviour - it in effect makes cause and effect simpler. Sticking with boundaries can allow others to re-engage with the learning process as they learn their behaviour is what effects consequences - rather than consequences being random and often painful.
From the point of view of the relative living with addiction it would be easy to see how a cycle of learned helplessness could be begun. Addiction is a disease reflected in behaviour, in other words the sufferer may have alsoo learned to become helpless through the failure of their own attempts to control alcohol - they may (according to this theory) then stop trying regardless of the pain caused to them or others. This means the relative living with them no longer influences their behaviour - even if they present them with 'help' such as AA they see a picture remarkabley similar to the dog still sat there even when escape is on offer. I think at this point the relative begins to learn only failure.
Also in addiction is the fact that the substance itself changes behaviour and thought processes leaving the relative dealing with a loved one who's behaviour is no longer predictable. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that this would compound the effects of the helplessness already percieved.
The beauty of it is that it can be changed. Take the above examples with addiction - if the relative re-focuses attention on self they move into a landscape they can influence. Meanwhile working through the steps they may well find their anger decrease and with it their 'punishment' of the addict. They also give clear guidelines empowering the addict to re-engage with an internalised locus of control.
Either way it's win win. It won't cure the disease but provides a much better/healthier way to live and deal with it.
Because she came from a healthy environment, she made the conscious decision to get the he** out of the marriage that isn't healthy. What she learned in her early years was support, love, positive affirmations and all the stuff we're desperately searching for now. So this is the opposite of learned helplessness.
Cruelty-Free
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Sounds like my adolescence...
I've often equated my teenage years (and a few beyond) living with alcoholism as being akin to living in a very small prison cell with a cold concrete floor. While not a comfortable environment, eventually I found a way to get "comfortable" enough on that concrete floor to get a bit of sleep (I sometimes refer to this as my "discomfort zone").
Years later and after many Al-Anon meetings, I realized that the cell door had been open for quite some time, but I had yet to venture out and experience the life that was available to me. It seemed somehow easier and safer (?) to stay stuck in what I knew than to risk moving forward and finding that something even worse might be "out there". I'm grateful to Al-Anon for leading me to the spiritual awakening that finally gave me the courage to leave that cell, or else I might still be living like those dogs in the electrified cages...
I've often equated my teenage years (and a few beyond) living with alcoholism as being akin to living in a very small prison cell with a cold concrete floor. While not a comfortable environment, eventually I found a way to get "comfortable" enough on that concrete floor to get a bit of sleep (I sometimes refer to this as my "discomfort zone").
Years later and after many Al-Anon meetings, I realized that the cell door had been open for quite some time, but I had yet to venture out and experience the life that was available to me. It seemed somehow easier and safer (?) to stay stuck in what I knew than to risk moving forward and finding that something even worse might be "out there". I'm grateful to Al-Anon for leading me to the spiritual awakening that finally gave me the courage to leave that cell, or else I might still be living like those dogs in the electrified cages...
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