Candidate of Psychology, O.V. Volkova

«Krasnoyarsk state medical university named after V.F. Voyno-Yasenetsky»

Ministry of Health of Russian Federation

The observation of personal

and learned helplessness phenomena

from the point of view of psychosomatic psychology

The learned helplessness is a phenomenon being more object of western physiologists and psychiatrists studying. It is usually being formed in the period of the childhood in the certain socially caused conditions and mentioning all spheres of psychological manifestation of the person. In external manifestations the learned helplessness demonstrates behavior braking, the weakened motivation, violation of informative activity and its efficiency, besides this phenomenon promotes emergence and strengthening of psychosomatic frustration.

The main specific feature the learned helplessness is its tendency to generalization. Having shown in one life situation, it extends on all aspects of vital activity of the person. Consequence of similar experience is refusal of attempts to solve even quite feasible problems and to overcome insignificant obstacles. Extent of learned helplessness generalization depends completely on nature of last experience of subject and its psychological installations. In particular, speaking about the preschool age proceeding in a situation of an illness, it is possible to claim that considerable degree of maintenance responsibility of life experience of the child lies on his direct social environment which structure is caused by the frequency of somatic diseases manifestation.

Special, qualitatively different nature of often ill child identity development is caused by his personal features which are in many respects closely connected with nature of child relationship with parents, his subjective knowledge and the relation to health, and not just objective weight of a disease. All this defines a peculiar behavior of the child in an illness situation which researchers characterize as adaptive.

Types of parental behavior in situation of child illness are shown depending on their specific psychological features. In particular, the disturbing parents concentrated on health create the atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and expectation of serious illnesses and a bad outcome of a disease. In the same situation selfish parents aspiring to demonstrative behavior can use an illness of the child for drawing attention to the person. Very confident in the forces and opportunities, self-confident parents give attention to the child in general and during an illness in particular usually insufficiently. All cases are united by one feature: parents, realizing problems of the child, generate the secondary alarm aggravating harming somatic state.

In modern Russian psychology concerning the helplessness problem researches were devoted to studying of this phenomenon from the position of personal approach. By its definition, personal helplessness is the quality of the subject including unity of specific personal features, the arising at interaction external and internal factors, defining low ability of the person to transform reality, to operate events of person’s own life, to set the purposes and to reach them, overcoming varied practical difficulties.

Studying mechanisms of personal helplessness formation, researchers give a significant part in this process to injuring events such as: frequent somatic diseases and recurrence of chronic aggravations. In direction of identification the importance of learned and personal helplessness phenomena, in studying the factors determining development of the identity of often ill child of the preschool age, helplessness is shown in activity of the subject by decrease in its success.

Helplessness is formed and "learnt" gradually, under the influence of as much as disease, so the nature of somatic status influence on activity of the child, but under the influence of social response factor to features of child’s somatic health. The fixed forms of family behavior play the significant role in formation of negative tendencies in emotional and strong-willed development of the child identity as a family system often shows the fixed forms of behavior which don't promote productive changes and adaptation and, on the contrary, quite often interfere with development of its certain members and family system.

With development and growth of somatically sick child mother doesn't increase the necessary distance between him and her, doesn't change perception of the child, continues to apply already habitual, non-flexible receptions and education methods, to deprive of child’s independence, to make the lowered demands to the child, to make for it decisions. Stereotyping and fixing of parents on a certain type of the parental relation to the child (lack of orientation to desires and possibilities of the child in combination with a hyper patronage), inadequate understanding of the phenomena of illness and health, and, as a result, specific understanding of observance of a healthy lifestyle in a family of the child, lead to decrease in a level of development of all components of strong-willed action and formation of the learned helplessness.

Now the learned helplessness is considered as a condition arising as reaction to uncontrollable events for the person, tending to generalization. The founder of the theory of the learned helplessness M. Seligman emphasizes that the condition of the learned helplessness is formed as a result of the experience received in the childhood and teenage age.

The problem of the learned helplessness, its studying from a position of psychosomatic approach remains sharply urgent in connection with growing number of somatically weakened children, growth and which development happens under direct influence of an illness, in a situation of the distorted forms of family behavior.

References:

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3. Ivanova V. I. Sense of an illness in a context of family relationship // Vestnik MGU. − 1993. − № 1. − p.31−38.

4. Seligman Martin Je. P. New positive psychology: Scientific view fortunately and meaning of the life / Perev. s angl. - M.: Izdatel'stvo «Sofija», 2006. - 368 p.

5. Ciring D.A. Psychology of personal helplessness: doctorial degree dissertation: 19.00.01 / D.A. Ciring. − Tomsk, 2010. − 45 p.