How to Help Your Client Beat ‘Learned Helplessness’

How to Help Your Client Beat ‘Learned Helplessness’:
3 techniques to encourage your depressed client to take action

Feeling helpless when you’re not, because you were helpless in the past, is known as ‘learned helplessness’, and needs to be addressed when treating depression.

Mark Tyrrell of Uncommon Knowledge talks you through 3 techniques that he recommends using to break down 'learned helplessness' and help steer depressed clients towards confidence, self assertion and vital optimism

Mark references a video demonstration which you can watch here:

[mfree]

Growing up in a family where criticism is default, being told your useless is common, being spoken over is continual, your opinion or wishes are irrelevant, even after 49 years I still struggle to break out from those experiences. I'm only now learning I have to remove certain individuals in my family from my life, which is difficult to do without losing the whole family. What you experience in childhood can scar you right throughout your life. Thank you for the video.

[ceye]

I’m watching all your videos. Slowly. Not all at once. Than I’m watching them again. I want to absorb them like a sponge so I can live them. You really help me. Your very kind and compassionate. Thank you!

[KingMaitland]

The open bird-cage analogy is really good.

[geetha-mk]

Way back in 2013 I purchased some of your hypnosis downloads to help me beat depression, anxiety etc. and to get some courage to speak in front of a small set of people (like 3-4). Those downloads helped me immensely and almost 15-20 years later I feel that I have become much more relaxed (though still struggling with depression) and also able to speak in front of fairly large crowds (50-70 people) many a times. My sincere thanks and I wish many people get to know your work and take advantage of it.

[dennisnewton]

Thanks for this. I’m not a mental health professional I’m am taking control of my mental health to the best of my ability. Thanks for the resource

[littlewillowlinda]

I'm taking the self esteem course and it’s been really hard. I’m feeling better but i guess my brain is finding it hard to accept. Never allowed to make my own decisions before and feeling incapable on my own now; that’s so accurate. My relatives all got thru it by marrying young before they got a chance to have their own lives. I’ve been on my own for ten years but it’s only hit me now that I’m living alone and have been (kind of not really) surviving on my own. I didn’t think I was depressed still but I think I might need more time before going back to the course.

[maricelp]

Just found bout "Learned Helplessness and found your video. I like this third person approach ❤

[thatgirlmeshathelovingyour]

No one on this Earth will love you more than you love yourself. Be intentional.

[andrepostoluck]

Recently it was found that helplessness isn't learned, but the default behavior. Instead, competence is learned or sometimes forgotten when not enough positive reinforcements. See: Debunked: “learned helplessness, ” a theory developed from a cruel animal experiment
Helplessness isn't learned — it's an instinctual response that can be overcome.

[treesart]

Hi. It's interesting to see what you tell therapists to do. I've had a number of student therapists now, because I had no health insurance and the students were free, and I've been so unsure about whether they actually helping me, that it made me really mistrustful. I kind of laughed on the inside about how silly they were.
But I see that these exercises are in fact very silly, and apparently are supposed to be that way. So I may have misjudged my student therapists.
On the other hand, I wished I would've known what was going on because of course I KNOW what active steps I can take, but I'm still not doing the latter is my problem. Not that I don't have insight.

[Claudette]

Growing up with an abusive elder in my life, experienced bullying when I was younger, had an abusive first husband, now a controlling second husband with a disorder. Colleagues don’t listen to me and I’m disregarded. My ideas are either taken or dismissed. My self-esteem has gone down so that I am frightful to leave this job. In fact, I don’t even feel confident to be around others in the work environment, so I stay as it in the enables me to be remote.

I’m fully aware that I need to find a new job and leave the marriage, but I don’t know how to do this.

[mikecoffee]

This explains my dreams of being trapped

[ralphrex]

The bird cage metaphor reminds me of bobcat release videos, once free from a trap the bobcat stays put scared & snarling, not realising it is now free.

[deanneharrall]

Thanks for that video, a very welcomed insight to manage my life.

[neilyoung]

i am involved with person who has learned helplessness... but it comes because a doctor told him a LONG time ago that he would never walk again, even tho now there is no medical reason for him to be in a wheelchair or totally inactive, he could walk if he wanted to but that old belief keeps him from doing that or getting better he thoroughly believes this and ALL of his family are pretty fed up with this whole show.. i know hypnosis could alter that believe system, but there is nothing within 400 miles that may address that... i am not family either, i just want to help the guy get a grip on life .is there a cd that would help address this, being he is not going to any counselling and the family doesnt understand how hypnosis or hypnotherapy would help him ...everybody is older including me, 60's -80's years old ....i know there is more going on here but that is the main hurdle, , his belief other part is i have alot of knowledge and some practical experience with hypnosis, so i could help him ...BUT i have NO voice anymore (lost it to cancer) so i can see what needs to be done and how to go about it ...but cannot act which is very frustrating to me voice =no help


.

[beren]

I'm a Wildlife Biologist & Ethologist. The caged bird is now too old to learn how to live in the wild and innately feels safer inside it's cage which is home and where food is delivered to it. While re-introducing black-footed ferrets in WY, only the teen-aged ferrets would successfully make the transition from raised in a cage to life in the wild, because we mammals are daring in our teens, feel invincible, are more curious than afraid, and trust that we'll be cared for because we always have been. The older we get, the more bad experiences get rooted into our subconscious minds and the more cautious we become; riddled with anxieties. So teen-aged girls run off with their bad boyfriends in order to escape their controlling parents, but older wives stay with their controlling husbands out of knowing full well they would have a much tougher time keeping a roof over their heads, car running, and all the other demands of living and/or raising kids on their own.

[notsure]

thank you so much! This is super helpful!

[stanleymaestas]

00:01:40 to get to the steps. Although it's a short video.

[kentwaters]

do you do telehealth with facetiming.?

[ring_thunder]

is learned helplessness part of an inferiority complex?