The environmental theory of depression states that people become depressed because of their surroundings and events. This means that the problems around these people, such as poverty, can make them feel stress, or sadness, and therefore make them depressed. Traumatic events such as the death of someone, or abuse by someone, can also lead to these feelings.
Learned Helplessness is caused because someone is used to hearing the same negative things about themselves that they have learned to act helplessly against it. For example, if someone is so used to hearing that he or she is a bad student, and that is why they never get good grades, they will be mentalized to believe this is true, instead of believing that it is the lack of effort that has caused these grades. People who have learned to act helpessly, have just accepted things as they are, and they believe that they will always be the same way because that is just the way it is. Learned Helplessness can be one of the factors that can lead to depression.
We can relate the environmental theory of depression, to learned helplessness, because sometimes you can become to act helplessly when it comes to your surroundings, or a specific and traumatic event. For example, a woman cam have an abusive husband, and he hits her and abuses her most of the time. At first, this woman will try to change the way her husband treats her, but as time goes on and she recieves no help from neither family members or friends, and she simply cannot do it herself, she will just accept things the way they are. She will no longer try to change the situation, because she has learned to act helplessly and mentalize herself that she is not able to do it.
