"Learned helplessness" as a psychological phenomenon relates to situations where the individual assumes they are powerless to change certain things, but they ac

"Learned helplessness" as a psychological phenomenon relates to situations where the individual assumes they are powerless to change certain things, but they actually are not. A lot of the time, when one is an individual contributor in an engineering team, that is not the case. Rather it is the case that you really are powerless. That's an important distinction to make. Don't assume that your struggle is with internal psychological forces, when your struggle really is with your teammates and the team's power structure.