When I was in college, studying psychology, I became extremely interested in the theory of “learned helplessness.” From wikipedia: “Learned helplessness is a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has learned to act or behave helpless in a particular situation, even when it has the power to change its unpleasant or even harmful circumstance.”

Lately it’s been popping up rather frequently when working with my clients, typically small business owners. I own a business that provides identity and marketing counsel and development for these businesses, and the philosophy I’ve come to follow is called “organic branding.” Relative to the culture of learned helplessness, Organic branding is a practice that works to reverse mental blocks that weaken forward movement. And the frightening part is that BECAUSE my practice depends on working to remove these attitudes and fears that inhibit sustainable, consistent growth, I am witnessing more and more businesses that are rendered practically immobile by their learned helplessness.

I find myself thinking a lot about how our current culture is being crippled by a collective learned helplessness and how it really does seem like there’s no way out for the “little guy”.  And while my business is delightfully successful at this time, I can’t help but feel bitter toward all the lenders, leaders, and advisors who created a climate of false achievement for the everyday person.

This false achievement has lead to hyper-consumerism (and as a consequence, rampant debt), manipulation, and an epidemic of personal insecurities (living up to ideals that make no human/organic sense).

I for one am not glum. And I think that what will start to happen is people will begin to educate themselves and then responsibly educate others about how we’ve been as a culture psychologically manipulated to react with “helplessness” rather than “activism”–because if you read a little about “learned helplessness” theory, you will find that in each of the conducted experiments, there was always an option for the subject to change the negative situation. The challenge is to maintain awareness of what’s happening to us, how we catalogue this in our minds (am I victim? am I a warrior?) and how we can change that which hinders our dreams

I’d love to hear some thoughts on this.

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