Is Learned Helplessness Preventing You from Overcoming Trauma? A Therapist Explains

Learned helplessness. I’d heard the term before, but conflated it with weaponized incompetence, a phenomenon where someone (usually the male partner in a hetero relationship) exerts little or no effort in a task to avoid completing it and/or not being asked to do it again. (Think: the husband who ‘doesn’t know where the spoons go.’) The more I read about learned helplessness, the more I realized these two concepts are not the same. Learned helplessness is actually a body’s response to trauma—not your toxic masculinity scheming to get out of dishwasher duty. So I spoke with a licensed social worker with over a decade of experience supporting individuals with PTSD, anxiety, depression and other conditions, to better understand what learned helplessness actually is and how to move past it to heal.

Lesley Broff is a licensed social worker who graduated from The University of Pittsburgh with her Masters degree in Social Work. She has over 10 years of experience working in community mental health settings with adults with severe mental health diagnoses, adults with disabilities, and children, adults and families with conditions including anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADHD and Autism.

Learned helplessness, Broff explains, “stems from repeated experiences of perceived failure or adversity where nothing [a person has] tried seemed to make a difference.” Essentially, the social worker expands, it’s when a person comes to believe they have no control over a situation, even when change is possible: “In everyday life, it presents in things like giving up easily, not speaking up in challenging situations or assuming efforts won't lead to success—like a student who stops studying because past attempts didn’t help, or someone who stays silent in meetings because they believe their voice won’t matter.”

Learned helplessness can sound like this:

• “Why bother?”
• “I’ve tried before—it didn’t work.”
• “Nothing’s going to change.”

Trauma can teach the nervous system to give up. “Trauma—especially the kind that’s prolonged or feels inescapable—can literally rewire the nervous system to believe safety isn’t possible,” Broff explains. “Over time, disengagement or submission becomes a survival strategy.”

For survivors of childhood abuse, domestic violence or chronic injustice, learned helplessness can settle in early. You try to fight back. You try to speak up. But when nothing changes—or worse, things escalate—your brain associates effort with futility. So, to survive, you must submit or disengage. “Learned helplessness is the nervous system’s way of saying, ‘Survive now, heal later,’” says Broff. While staying small, quiet and helpless may be adaptive in the moment, “problems arise when this protective strategy continues even after the threat is gone, making it harder to pursue change, growth or connection.”

Everyone has rough weeks (or months). But learned helplessness is a pattern. “If you’re noticing a chronic belief that nothing you do will make a difference, across many parts of life—that’s a signal,” says Broff. You may find yourself withdrawing from support, brushing off opportunities, or assuming the worst before you even try. It’s not a failure of character—it’s a conditioned response.

Unlearning helplessness isn’t about flipping a magical confidence switch. “In therapy, we work on both thoughts and behaviors,” says Broff. “We examine the beliefs that keep someone stuck, and we gently test them with small, manageable actions.”

One of the most powerful disruptors to learned helplessness, she stresses, is also connection. “Safe relationships help mirror back your capacity and your value,” says Broff. That could be a therapist, a friend, a support group—or even a familiar object that offers a sense of being held when people don’t feel accessible. Broff mentions Percy the 3 Lb. Hug Bear , a sensory bear, which can offer grounding for those whose bodies still feel on high alert.

Know this: it’s not your fault. “This way of thinking doesn't come from who you are—it comes from your nervous system, which was trained by your past to expect threats,” says Broff. “But your past doesn’t dictate your future.”