Learned Helplessness/ Environmental Theory

The concept of learned helplessness was developed by Martin Seligman. Research had showed that learned helplessness disrupts normal development and learning and leads to emotional disturbances, especially depression. Depression has three different theories; biological, cognitive, and environmental. The environmental theory can be related with learned helplessness. This theory states that everything that is outside us, things that occur in the course of our life like stress at home or work, the loss of someone loved, a broken heart, problems at school, etc. cause someone to suffer from depression. The experiences we live daily can affect our state of mind. A common situation in which we can see both learned helplessness and the environmental theory is a bad relationship between a girl and a boy. For example, if a woman is having a relationship in which she is suffering and the only thing she hears from her boyfriend is, you are not the best girlfriend I ever had and you have so many bad things but that’s how I love you. If he keeps treating her badly and saying that she should stay with him because of her bad temper and character, she would not find other man that can love her, she will learned that no other man will have interest in her. The most horrible thing is if she lived this situation more than twice, this will cause the woman to have psychological problems and will begin to suffer depression. She will feel like no one values her qualities and that all men are the same so she will stay with him, or she will decide not have another relationship because all men are the same and will make her suffer. She will learn that no man will make her happy, since all her past relationships had mistreated her.