Martin Seligman’s Circuit Of Hope: Definition And Fundamentals
The founder of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, published a book titled Circuit of Hope in 2018 , which managed to captivate many readers. It tells about his life from his childhood to the present, and also reveals the visionary stories behind his most important investigations. Within these, the theory of learned helplessness stands out since it manages to give it another spin and thus generate a new point of view on it.
Does the term learned helplessness sound familiar to you? It refers to the condition of a person or animal that has learned to behave passively in situations that have been classified as uncontrollable. Furthermore, added to this is the subjective feeling of not having the ability to do anything to modify the current situation. As a result, passivity is born even though there are real opportunities to change the aversive situation.
In this regard, in today’s article, we will analyze the book Circuit of Hope published by Seligman, where revolutionizes the concept of learned helplessness and introduces the concept of the circuit of hope What do you mean by this? Keep reading to find out.
The circuit of hope is designated by Seligman as NDR-CPFM. It is a complex functioning brain structure linked to the prefrontal cortex. Linking it to the concept of learned helplessness discussed above, when faced with negative events or prolonged threats, the body acts through learned helplessness, which increases our anxiety levels.
However, this is where our brain processes come into play and help us cushion that passivity that is activated “by default.” With all this, Seligman realizes that learned helplessness would be the default response of mammals. However, Human beings have this “new” circuit, that of hope, through which we learn to dominate, control and cushion threats
Going one step further, thanks to the circuit of hope, we can learn (and also teach) that future negative threats (or negative events) can become controllable, and that helps protect us from helplessness, passivity. and anxiety.
Learned Helplessness
As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, learned helplessness is a set of emotions, feelings, physiological symptoms and behaviors characterized by discouragement, abandonment, passivity and inaction in the face of negative or unpleasant scenarios, which any person would like. escape. People who fall into this state interpret that their behavior has no effect on the environment and ‘learn’ to do nothing, even if they are having a very bad time
It is something similar to giving up, abandoning or ‘throwing in the towel’ when we have the feeling that our problem has no way out or its resolution is very far from our reach. Any attempt at a solution will seem useless. All of this responds to a purely subjective experience, but those who suffer from it cannot see operational alternatives to improve.
Learned helplessness flourishes when a subject has repeatedly faced certain situations without their actions having managed to have the effect they really wanted. This ends up leading to a feeling of helplessness and the perception that what surrounds them is uncontrollable and that, therefore, it is best to do nothing.
In fact, even when the result is the desired one, the subject tends to think that it has not occurred due to the actions carried out, but rather by pure chance or because it had to be that way As a result, it is not surprising that the person who suffers from learned helplessness ends up having a serious self-esteem problem.
Furthermore, this is increased by an extreme lack of motivation. All this means that the will of the subject himself is always subordinated to any external aspect. In extreme cases, depressive and anxiety symptoms may even arise.
The threats
Throughout the article, we have been talking about the connection between learned helplessness, the hope circuit and threats. In this regard, it is worth noting that, according to Seligman, as the organization evolved over the years it became more complex. With this, he began to identify and anticipate possible threats.
Likewise, to face threats we develop behavioral and cognitive skills. Control of these threats was possible even with prolonged threats. In this way, in the face of prolonged threats, we activate energy adjustments in the body We also activate mechanisms of passivity, but these mechanisms are blocked when we activate control.
Conclusions
Seligman himself and his team managed to understand that within the human brain there is a brain circuit that allows us to always live in hope. In such a way that hope will always be in humans and that no matter how much sorrow depresses them, it will shine showing that there is a north to walk, follow and trust. There will always be a new dawn, it can always be achieved And so that there is no gap between the hope of psychology and the hope of theological virtue, I must quote Seligman’s abbreviated phrase: “between science and religion, everything can be understood.”
