Psychotherapy
PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA AND LEARNED
HELPLESSNESS: SELIGMAN'S PARADIGM RECONSIDERED
RAYMOND B. FLANNERY, JR. AND MARY R. HARVEY
Harvard Medical School
This article presents an ecological
model for understanding the range of
individual differences arising from
traumatic events. It is suggested that
Seligman's model of learned
helplessness should not be considered
a unitary construct. Lack of options,
lack of skills, opposition from others,
internalization of blame, adaptive
survival, and altruism are delineated as
examples of alternative sources of
behavior found among victims of
psychological trauma.
In the last decade there has been increasing
clinical and scientific interest in the phenomenon
of psychological trauma (Ochberg, 1988; van der
Kolk, 1987). Survivors of combat, rape, incest,
battering, and natural disasters often present an
array of symptoms recognized as post-traumatic
stress disorder (Figley, 1985). Sleep disturbance,
intrusive memories, flashbacks, and hypervigilance
are common examples of such symptoms. Loss
of personal control, social withdrawal, and loss
of meaning have been identified as the immediate
psychological disruptions incurred from such
traumatic events (Figley, 1985; Ochberg, 1988).
Such disruptions may also have life-long conse-
quences (van der Kolk, 1987).
Several authors (Flannery, 1987*; Walker, 1989)
have used the concept of "learned helplessness"
(Seligman, 1975) as a paradigm for understanding
the continuing sense of lost personal control re-
ported by some victims of repeated or chronic
Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed
to Raymond B. Flannery, Jr., Dept. of Psychiatry, The Cam-
bridge Hospital, 1493 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 02139.
374
Volume 28/Summer 1991/Number 2
trauma (e.g., victims of incest, battering, combat,
and sustained torture). Walker (1989), for example,
has used this construct to explain why some women
either do not leave their abusive mates or allow
them to return home. Such helplessness may be
accompanied by lowered self-esteem, a general
disinterest in life as well as by an increased prob-
ability of additional victimization (Flannery, 19876;
Walker, 1989).
This article suggests that the applicability of
the learned helplessness paradigm (Seligman, 1975)
with chronically traumatized victims of violence
may be more limited than has generally been as-
sumed. An ecological model for understanding
individual differences in victims' responses
(Harvey, 1989; Koss & Harvey, 1991) is utilized
to delineate alternate explanations for behaviors
frequently cited as learned helplessness.
An Ecological Model of Psychological
Trauma
The ecological model (Harvey, 1989; Koss &
Harvey, 1991) presented in Figure 1 emphasizes
the multiple, interactive determinants of individual
post-traumatic response patterns, and is consistent
with the psychosocial framework posited by Green,
Wilson, and Lindy (1985), and with the integrative
person-by-environment approach suggested by
Wilson (1989). It differs from these approaches
in its attention to the role of persons other than
victim and offender and in its distinction between
event and environment factors. In addition, the
model includes a conceptual delineation of four
post-traumatic recovery outcomes.
Assumptions. The ecological model (Harvey,
1989) recognizes that individual reactions to po-
tentially traumatic events vary widely, that not
all such events are equally traumatic for all in-
dividuals, and that individual differences in post-
traumatic response and recovery are the result of
a complex interaction among person x event x
environment factors (Harvey, 1989).

Psychological Response to Traumatic Event:
Person x Event x Environment
Figure 1. An Ecological Model of Psychological Trauma.
Characteristics of persons which influence the
individual's psychological response have been
described by a variety of authors (Green, Wilson
& Lindy, 1985; Koss & Harvey, 1991; Wilson,
1989). These factors may include the victim's age
and stage of development, his or her pre-traumatic
repertoire of coping capabilities and cognitive
functioning. The relationship of the victim to the
offender as well as the attitudes, values, support
capabilities of the victim's support system also
need to be considered. Supports could include
care givers, official respondents such as police
and medical personnel, as well as key members
of the victim's natural support network. Event
variables might include the nature, severity, fre-
quency, and duration of the traumatic event,
whether it was suffered alone or with others and
any specific events to which the victim assigns
significant meaning. Environmental variables of
importance include the degree of safety and pro-
tection afforded the victim post-trauma, the quality
and availability of appropriate community re-
sources, and the attitudes and values toward victims
prevailing in the larger society and in the victim's
own community.
The ecological model thus acknowledges and
attempts to account for the fact that a twenty-
year-old college student who is well-informed about
rape, lives in a community which offers compre-
hensive services for rape victims, and is active in
a supportive feminist community may respond to
sexual assault differently than will a 15-year-old
girl whose pre-rape belief system is essentially
victim-blaming, and who lives in a community
which is devoid of victim resources. Trauma re-
sponse and recovery will vary not only because
of differences between the two victims and the
assaults they endured, but also because of dif-
ferences in the value systems and resources of
support figures and the larger community (Koss
& Harvey, 1991).
Trauma and Helplessness
Recovery
Treatment
Intervention
No Recovery
Recovery
No Treatment
Intervention
No Recovery
Defining Recovery. Harvey (1989) identifies
seven attributes which characterize post-traumatic
recovery. Recovery is defined, first, by the in-
dividual's resumption of personal control over the
remembering process. Secondly, memory is linked
with affect, and, thirdly, the affect evoked by
traumatic recall is bearable. In the recovery process,
amnestic periods are replaced with known history.
The individual can elect to recall or not recall
events that previously intruded upon awareness,
and memory and feeling are joined. Fearful events
feel frightening once again. Losses are recalled
with sadness, and anger is felt as personal violations
are remembered. With recovery these affects are
tolerable and no longer threaten to overwhelm the
victim.
A fourth indicator of recovery is the individual's
understanding and mastery of post-traumatic
symptoms. Situations and stimuli likely to 'trigger'
flashbacks, for example, have been identified and
can be avoided. When unavoidable, they are an-
ticipated and prepared for. The fifth factor in re-
covery is improved self-esteem: self-injurious be-
haviors have been supplanted by self-caring
routines, self-blame by self-regard. The sixth in-
dicator is the capacity to form and maintain safe
attachments. Isolation is resolved, and trust and
compassion for self and others increase. Through
the process of grieving the losses inherent in vic-
timization are attenuated, the victim assigns some
life-affirming meaning to the traumatic event(s),
and a sense of purposeful meaning in life develops.
Outcomes. This model would then predict at
least four possible outcomes. In the first possibility,
the victim receives treatment and recovers. In the
second case, the victim receives treatment, but
the treatment is ineffective and the victim remains
symptomatic. Many in this group often remain
helpless and socially isolated as well.
The third response outcome is characterized by
the individual's apparent recovery in the absence
375
R. B. Flannery, Jr. & M. R. Harvey
of clinical intervention. Here sufficient support
and material goods may facilitate recovery in some
victims. This third outcome may also be indicative
of stress-resistant persons (Flannery, 1987a, 1990),
individuals who have effective skills for coping
and appear to minimize the potential negative health
impact from traumatic events. The fourth outcome
is failed recovery in the absence of intervention,
and speaks to the helplessness and isolation seen
in the aftermath of untreated victimization.
Harvey's ecological model (1989) demonstrates
how common behaviors can be understood from
a variety of individually different meanings, affects,
and cognitions. For example, in outcomes one
and three, the victim demonstrates common adap-
tive behaviors. One pathway, however, involved
clinical intervention; the other, apparent self-gen-
erated stress-resistance. This model demonstrates
the importance of such individual processes in
trauma phenomena, including learned helplessness.
Learned Helplessness
Animal Research. Between 1965-1969,
Martin Seligman (1975) defined the original con-
struct of learned helplessness. Working with 150
dogs, he placed some of them in a harness apparatus
from which there was no escape. He and his col-
leagues next provided a shock to the animals'
paws, a painful stimulus which the dogs could
not terminate.
After several such trials, Seligman then placed
these animals in a shuttle avoidance box. When
a buzzer sounded or the room lights dimmed, the
animal had 10 seconds in which to leap a barrier
and avoid the shock. These animals with a prior
history of inescapable shock made no effort to
jump. Instead, they remained stationary and pas-
sively elected to receive the shock. This behavior
was quite different from that of other dogs who
had no prior history of shock, and who readily
learned to avoid pain by jumping from one side
of the cage to the other.
Seligman noted that the animals who refused
to jump withdrew to the corner of the cage, and
remained passive; they appeared helpless and dys-
phoric.
Seligman and his colleagues understood this
phenomenon from a cognitive psychological
viewpoint. They hypothesized that frequent ex-
perience with a lack of contingency between out-
come and response (i.e., between a cessation of
shock or an escape from pain and the animal's
efforts to escape an inescapable harness) led the
376
organism to assume that escape attempts (and ul-
timately other actions) were futile. Seligman (1975)
labeled this phenomenon learned helplessness.
Human Research. Human research studies (see
Garber & Seligman [1980] for a review) suggested
that humans develop similar patterns of helplessness
including loss of mastery, social isolation, pas-
sivity, and dysphoric affect.
Thus, Seligman's theory of learned helplessness
(1975) was extended to humans, and referred to
a condition in which the individual ceased to ap-
preciate the potential efficacy of his or her own
actions to influence daily life in adaptive ways.
However, since not all traumatized persons became
helpless, Seligman later expanded his theory to
include three cognitive factors likely to strengthen
or weaken the probability of developing help-
lessness (Peterson & Seligman, 1984). If the in-
dividual assumes excessive personal control, con-
cludes that the event will be of long-lasting
duration, and will negatively influence other sub-
sequent actions by the individual, then helplessness
is the likely outcome.
While other researchers have suggested that
helplessness might have genetic roots (Kagan,
1989) or be a variant of depression (Paul, 1988),
Seligman's theory (Peterson & Seligman, 1984)
has remained the dominant model.
Learned Helplessness Reconsidered
Empirical data (McClelland, 1989) as well as
extensive clinical anecdotal evidence (Flannery,
1990; Walker, 1989; Wiener, 1989) has led several
authors, including the present writers, to reconsider
Seligman's theory of learned helplessness (1975).
While the core event of inescapable pain is
similar in trauma to Seligman's model (1975), his
model, even with the three additional cognitive
factors (Peterson & Seligman, 1984), fails to con-
sider the ecological context and variables of some
victims of repeated or chronic trauma noted in
Figure 1.
Some examples: An incest victim's silence or
a battered wife's reluctance to seek help might
be considered helpless behavior, but it is equally
possible that there is no family or social support/
legal services to offer real safety. Other victims
may see in the traumatizing situation access to
resources considered even more important than
physical safety. An abused child may endure vi-
olence at home inflicted by one parent to maintain
proximity to the other, or to siblings and friends.
Still other victims may fear the unknown more
than the known. An elderly person endures the

possibility of criminal violence because he or she
fears a nursing home.
In short, the choices victims make have a great
deal to do with the ecosystem of resources available
to them as they try to shape their fate.
Where such outcomes are not easily understood
within Seligman's model (Seligman, 1975; Pe-
terson & Seligman, 1984), an ecological viewpoint
(Harvey, 1989) may provide some clarity. The
following presents some alternative ways of un-
derstanding helpless behavior. It is drawn from
work by previous authors (McClelland, 1989;
Walker, 1989; Wiener, 1989) as well as our own
clinical practice. It is not presented in any ranked
order of importance, and should not be considered
exhaustive of possible explanations.
(1). Lack of Options: An individual may appear
helpless because of a sense of hopelessness because
of an absence of alternative options. This for-
mulation most resembles Seligman's (1975) in
that the victim perceives no reasonable escape.
The options for a battered wife are limited. She
can remain with her children in an intermittently
violent home; she can call potentially disinterested
authorities and thus provoke certain violence; she
can seek a shelter for battered women but would
not be able to take any of her children over twelve;
or she can seek refuge in a general shelter for the
homeless where random violence may occur. These
choices lead to despondency and despair, not se-
curity and the reassurance that life can be better.
The helplessness emanates from the victim's de-
spair and from an ecosystem that does not offer
alternatives to continued victimization.
(2). Lack of Skills: Some individuals who ap-
pear passive in the face of ongoing trauma and
who appear helpless post-trauma may in fact lack
the skills needed to accomplish escape or resolve
the problem. What to do? When to leave? Whom
to trust? Whom to tell? What to say? These are
complex skills for adult victims to have mastered.
Physically or sexually abused young children may
be unable to even formulate these questions. Elderly
and handicapped victims may lack the physical
strength to act.
(3). Opposition from Others: Some individuals
do have a sense of true possible alternatives and
the skills necessary to implement the solutions,
butfindthemselves blocked by the ineffectiveness
of others. McClelland (1989) refers to this as
frustrated agency. A battered spouse files an abuse
petition and obtains a restraining order only to
find the legal system is not responsive during the
implementation of such orders. The adult incest
Trauma and Helplessness
survivor discloses her abuse only to find herself
cut off from the family. The combat victim seeks
medical care from a military hospital that states
his or her health problems are not service-connected
disabilities. Such psychological pressure to abandon
efforts at empowerment and efficacy can appear
to be helpless behavior.
(4). Internalization of Blame: Often victims
appear helpless because they believe that they are
not deserving of better. Self-esteem remains low
even when the individual has the skills to cope
more adaptively. For example, youngsters who
grew up in homes with alcoholic parents are fre-
quently criticized relentlessly. Often they are bat-
tered or sexually abused. Early and recurrent vic-
timization may engender what Janoff-Bulman
(1985) refers to as characterological self-blame,
and cause the individual to assume that continued
victimization is justifiable punishment for his or
her presumed inadequacies.
(5). Adaptive Survival: Walker (1989) has
called special attention to the adaptive advantages
of apparent passivity for some women who are
battered (e.g., the battered woman facing difficult
external barriers to escape). She notes that the
woman's apparent passivity may contain the abuse
or minimize the degree of injury suffered during
her mate's violent episodes. Such passivity is less
indicative of helplessness than it is a means by
which victim may gain at least some degree of
indirect mastery of her environment. When the
passivity no longer serves this purpose and/or when
other possibilities exist, this coping strategy may
be abandoned in favor of direct escape.
(6). A Sense of Altruism: Some victims of
crime, or of physical or sexual abuse may appear
helpless and accepting of the abuse because their
most immediate goal is to protect others who are
seen as weaker and more fragile than themselves.
The battered wife may absorb enormous violence
in the hopes of diverting it from her children. The
incested daughter may endure repeated sexual abuse
in silence in the hopes of protecting a younger
sibling or sparing her mother grief. The role of
victimhood is accepted in the hope that others
will be spared. The individual may be highly skilled
in coping, but be unwilling to use those skills lest
someone else less able to cope be injured more
severely.
Clinical Implications
The presence of at least six possible ways to
account for behaviors that might otherwise be
labeled as learned helplessness should alert the
377
R. B. Flannery, Jr. & M. R. Harvey
clinician and researchers to the need for a thorough
assessment of the affective, behavioral, and cog-
nitive domains of victims. The clinician in par-
ticular needs to evaluate the onset and persistence
of apparent helplessness in light of the ecological
context of the traumatic event and its aftermath.
Special attention should be directed to the victim's
motivational stance. Clear specificity regarding
the etiology of post-traumatic adjustment is fun-
damental to the development of appropriate in-
terventions. Such interventions would vary, and
might include offering medical assistance, teaching
new skills, challenging prevailing beliefs, or re-
moving social barriers.
Paul (1988) has found antidepressant medication
to be helpful in treating some helpless behavior.
It is possible that his approach may be effective
with victims experiencing hopelessness and
worthlessness.
Similarly, Flannery (1987a, 1990) has developed
Project SMART, a stress management approach
that fosters increased mastery and more caring
social supports. This approach might prove of
value to victims who are skill deficient or who
are adapting passively to survive.
More traditional forms of psychotherapy (Figley,
1985; Ochberg, 1988) may prove to be of assistance
to those victims identified here as altruistic. Such
approaches may also be additionally necessary for
those who perceive themselves as hopeless or
worthless.
Koss and Harvey (1991) have described the
social, political, and institutional interventions
developed by grass-roots feminist organizations
to address the needs of victims faced with true
external barriers to safety and personal growth.
While such strategies would benefit all trauma
victims, these community interventions might be
of particular help to those here identified as pow-
erless. Such interventions directly address the
frustrated agency of which McClelland (1989) has
spoken.
Conclusion
Learned helplessness is not a unitary construct,
and the behaviors associated with helplessness
may emerge from a range of individually differing
circumstances. A thorough assessment is needed
in each case, and should include full consideration
of the "eco-system" within which both the trauma
378
and recovery from trauma occur. Such assessments
will hopefully yield more precise understanding
of the patient, and greater precision in selecting
the most efficacious treatments) for full recovery.
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