The antidote to helplessness

I am reading Martin Seligman’s excellent book “Learned Optimism.” He pioneered the theory of learned helpnessness and depression. Simply put if whatever you do doesn’t work, you learn how to be helpless and give up. In an experiment with 3 groups of dogs, he made a sound followed by a shock. In the first group the dog could press a button with his nose and wouldn’t get shocked. In the 2nd group (helpless) they were “yoked” to the first group but nothing they did would prevent a shock. The 3rd control group had no shock. They they put them in a room with a low wall and ran the experiment. The first group was exposed to the noise and they jumped over the wall to keep from getting shocked. The control group jumped over the wall. The “helpless” group gave up and 85% of the dogs wouldn’t jump over the wall and just sat there and got shocked. Think of poverty, living in a dictatorship, being abused, being imprisoned as examples of chronically being unable to affect your environment. But what about the 15% of the “helpless” group who jumped the wall and those people who prosper in the face of adversity? They’re the optimists. They are the ones inoculated against getting depressed. His other point which I wrote earlier about is that the other significant factor in depression is rumination. He pointed out that women have more depression than men because they think about their problems. Seligman says if a person loses his/her job, the woman thinks about what she did wrong. The man is much more likely to take action and even if it’s “bad” action like arguing with their wife, gambling, violence or some other acting out (or healthy action like I did home repairs) they are avoiding the depression-inducing rumination. So I spent the morning flying my radio-controlled helicopter and watching TV with my son Jeremy and friend Terry. Note that this is not denial, which is the substitution of a wish-fulfilling fantasy for reality. I know my diagnosis and what’s in store tomorrow. I just am not going to dwell on it.