The back of this book says "LEARNED OPTIMISM...offer(s) a program that anyone can use to conquer depression...."--Kirkus Reveiws. He uses the word optimism but it is not positive thinking. It is a very specific thing that he developed. He also wrote a book called Learned Helplessness.



In the laboratory, he was able to create a state of learned helplessness with people and animals. They would be given a bad stimulus to the animals like an electric shock at regular intervals. There was one group that could learn something to stop it from happening. The other group would get it no matter what they did.

The 2nd group could be given new experiments and learn a new way to stop the stimulus. The first group would give up trying to do something to stop it. They were later given a new situation, where they could easily learn to stop it with little effort. But they would not even try.

They had learned to be helpless. This state had 8 of the 9 signs of depression as mentioned above. It did not have the last one about suicidal thoughts since the stimulus given to humans were mild. Learned helplessness "follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter."

In these experiments some of the animals and humans could not be taught helplessness. They would always keep trying. This lead to the research on explanatory styles. This "is the manner in which you habitually explain to yourself why events happen."

The National Institute of Mental Health spent millions of dollars on testing that shows that this therapy works on depression. This book says

"How you think about your problems, including depression itself, will either relieve depression or aggravate it. A failure or defeat can teach you that you are now helpless, but learned helplessness will produce only momentary symptoms of depression-- unless you have a pessimistic explanatory style. if you do, then failure and defeat can throw you into a full-blown depression. On the other hand, if your explanatory style is optimistic, your depression will be halted."

One way of explaining events is if they are temporary or permanent. The latter is like saying "this kind of thing always happens." An example of the former is like saying "I was not feeling well that day." The pessimistic style explains bad events as if they are permanent. The optimistic style explains bad events as if they are temporary. The optimist also explains good things as if they are permanent. The pessimist explains good events as if they are temporary.

Another way of explaining things is if they are specific or pervasive. The pessimist will explain a car accident as everything in their life is a wreck. The optimist will explain it like "I need to get my car fixed and will be without a car for a few days.

Also the optimist will tend to explain it as it being the other guy's fault. The pessimist will say it his his fault. This third component is not quite as important as the other ones, but it is better for self-esteem. But I think that it only matters with people who have a lack of self-esteem, which may be most people. Practically everyone with depression also have too much anxiety.