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Learned helplessness is behavior that occurs when the subject endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape from or avoid. After such experiences, the organism often fails to learn or accept "escape" or "avoidance" in new situations where such behavior is likely to be effective. In other words, the organism learned that it is helpless. In situations where there is a presence of aversive stimuli, it has accepted that it has lost control and thus gives up trying, even as changing circumstances offer a method of relief from said stimuli. Such an organism is said to have acquired learned helplessness. Learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and related mental illnesses may result from such real or perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation. (Wikipedia)
