Action to overcome helplessness
Summary:
Complex PTSD often results in "learned helplessness" (Martin Seligman). But there is hope and it is possible to regain a sense of control and replace helplessness with optimism and effective action.
Helplessness. It is one of the most disabling symptoms of complex PTSD and a common feature of some other conditions too. What is it, and how can we overcome it?
Audio below
Caption: a bronze man stands on top of a gold ladder with his arms outstretched high.
Helplessness commonly develops following exposure to ongoing situations of overwhelming threat over which we have no control. Examples might be domestic violence/coercive control or growing up with an abusive caretaker.
The psychologist Martin Seligman coined the term ‘learned helplessness’ to describe people who feel helpless, and act helplessly, after exposure to such situations. Research has demonstrated how people whose previous life experiences placed them in a position of being unable to relieve stress often do not take action even after their circumstances do change. Seligman showed how external uncontrollable contingencies led to depression, in dogs and in humans.
For Seligman, the learned helplessness that follows experiences like growing up in an alcoholic home often generalises and affects our wider beliefs, attributions and motivation. We end up construing many or all other events in the same way; as uncontrollable, ongoing and likely to continue and as external to us. The learned belief that ‘I have no control over my environment’ results in a pessimistic thinking style that can easily lead to clinical depression.
Helplessness has a twin sister, hopelessness.
Helplessness also impacts the body. The animals unfortunate enough to receive electric shocks remained passive and unwilling to move after these stopped, staying in their cages and showing little curiosity.
Humans with learned helplessness also restrict their movement and action.
We may very literally get stuck and frozen in our bodies, unable to move. We might find ourselves literally unable to go outside for a walk or leave the bed. We might find it impossible to sit up straight, our spines collapsing and our bodies floppy. We might limit our use of space and engage in repetitive loops of movement.
How can we access power to break out of this hellish cage of our own making (and yet not)?
Small actions overcome helplessness.
The 12-step addiction recovery method is said to be ‘a programme of action’.
I remember a friend telling me, “if you can’t clean your whole house, start with one drawer. Just one drawer.” I live my life today according to the ‘Just One Drawer’ method. That method allowed me to pack up a house on my own with two young children. Simple daily action. The next right thing. Simplicity is key for me at least to cut through overwhelm.
Simple actions do not stop us from living within, and interacting with, oppressive systems.
Nonetheless, Seligman showed us how we can counteract learned helplessness with learned hopefulness and replace learned pessimism with learned optimism.
“Strength is the ability to move things”, someone once said.
Move what?
We can unlearn, and right-size, our ‘thinking’ minds and our thinking bodies. A reframed thought. A movement that engages our core and has us feel an embodied experience of power and agency. Starting and stopping.
One small complete action.
