Martin Seligman, Learned Helplessness and My Question for You

Dog lovers, be warned! Harsh experiment protocols referenced.

In 1967, psychologist and researcher Martin Seligman conducted an experiment on groups of dogs. In one group, the dogs were sporadically shocked and given the option to press a lever which stopped the shock. In another, each dog was shocked for the same intensity and duration, but had no lever and therefore no way to stop the shocks on their own volition. (Horrible, I know!) He wanted to explore the effects of controllable vs. uncontrollable trauma. What he noticed was a marked difference in how each group responded: the dogs without the ability to stop the shocks were more prone to lethargically lie on the ground and whine, whereas the others remained mobile and explorative. In the psychic (as in, psyche) world, learned helplessness sounds like, “No matter what I do, nothing makes a difference.” This learned belief in the futility of effort becomes an unmotivating force, keeping us from making empowered choices that can create meaningful change in our lives. This is what Martin Seligman discovered.

On the neurobiological level, learned helplessness can be equated to depression. Thinking back to the symptoms I named in that unfortunate group of dogs: lethargy, lying around, whining – it sounds a bit familiar, right? Many experiments utilizing both animals and humans went on to follow Martin Seligman’s, validating his theory of uncontrollable trauma eliciting this kind of response.

Peter Levine, founder of the Somatic Experiencing Institute and the somatic therapy movement, takes this one step further to specifically explain this phenomenon as the freeze response. The nervous system shuts down when it registers something like, “I can’t run or fight my way out of this threat, so my best bet here is to play dead” – just like possums, and actually, every other mammal including ourselves. His favorite example is wild gazelles. When getting chased by a tiger, their nervous system registers very quickly that it can’t outrun or fight a tiger, so they spontaneously collapse. You know why? It works! Predatory responses are also wired into the nervous system, and what they aren’t wired to do is to kill an animal that’s unmoving and appears to be dead. Perhaps the most notable finding from Martin Seligman was in the last phase of the experiment, where the researchers gave the dogs a new option to escape the shocks entirely. When allowed to escape the cage, the dogs from the first group freely walked out while the dogs who had no control over their shocks stayed despondently inside - as if leaving didn’t even register as a viable option.

My question to you is this: What is your “cage”?

Take some time - think about it. Maybe it’s possible that some figurative doors have been open to you this whole time - with only learned helplessness holding you back from seeing them.

Discharging the energy that underlies most freeze responses with Somatic Experiencing is a huge part of the work I’m so passionate about doing. It can, over time, heal this form of unresolved trauma. Over time, clients return to a regulated and naturally more empowered state. It is what’s called a “bottom-up” treatment: it attempts to cure the problem at its root, where the trauma is stored.

Even without a Somatic Experiencing specialist, though, you have the power to focus on the cognitive portions of healing from trauma. To question your maladaptive beliefs and place your focus on more empowering thoughts is called a “top-down” method. It might not be the full picture, and it takes upkeep - but it continually becoming aware of and correcting your thoughts is a choice you can make that CAN turn your life around! That voice of, “No matter what I do, nothing makes a difference” isn’t usually reality. The invitation here is to ask yourself — especially when feeling down or panicked — “Where CAN I create change?” “What possibilities, solutions, and doors ARE available to me that I might not be seeing?”

When you have your answers, the next step is perhaps even more important: changing your actions to meet your needs. When it comes to changing how you feel, behaviorists argue that this is far more effective than focusing on thoughts alone.

So now that you have this awareness, the choice is yours... to make those changes, create the solutions, fake it ‘til you make it... and Get Out Of that Freaking Cage!!!