Correlation of personal helplessness and psychological phenomena adjacent to it

Personal helplessness is viewed as a systematic quality of an object, defined by the symptom complex of certain personal characteristics, arising from interaction of internal and external conditions (system of family interrelations, experience of uncontrolled, traumatic events), which specifies the low level of subjectiveness, i.e. low ability of a man to modify reality, to manage events of personal life, to make and achieve goals, overcoming different kinds of hardships. Personal helplessness lies on one of the continuum poles, the opposite pole of which is the systematic quality of a subject, specified as self-dependence. Self-dependence is characterized by a high level of subjectiveness. Personal helplessness is associated with learned helplessness as a quality and condition. Learned helplessness is traditionally viewed as a condition arising as a reaction to uncontrolled events and showing in the expectation of unaccountability of future events and results of activity. Personal helplessness is a stable formation (while learned helplessness is a temporary one), it includes symptom complex of personal characteristics, which creates disposition to frequent and easy emergence of the learned helplessness condition. Learned helplessness can be an attribute to animals and people, personal helplessness is a totally human characteristic. Supposing that (as M. Seligman suggests) learned helplessness is a link in the chain of the whole process of depression progress, personal helplessness can be viewed as one of the main risk factors of learned helplessness development and, henceforth, probable depression. Personal helplessness promotes victimization due to the passivity of a helpless man, his increased dependence on others, predisposition to the sense of guilt, anxiety, however, it is not sufficient to form victimity. Victimity and helplessness can be connected with inability to cope with stress-inducing situations adaptively. All the four analysed psychological events have 'zones of intersection', which make them similar and interdependent. However, it is necessary to clearly differentiate between the specified phenomena, this will help to understand the nature of each of them and the character of connections between depression, learned helplessness, victimity, on the one hand, and personal helplessness, on the other hand.

Keywords

Authors

References