Pain Away: Learned Helplessness

[DISCLAIMER]

On his fifth studio album OMW2 Rexdale (2025) rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer Nav released the song “Pain Away”. Lyrics of the chorus state:

(Take all my pain away)

You just like medicine, you take my pain away

(Take all my pain)

You just like therapy, you take good care of me

(Take all my pain away)

You just like Novocain, you gon’ numb the pain

(Take all my pain)

You just like therapy, you take good care of me

On the track, Nav addresses the idea that a person (e.g., an intimate partner) can take his pain away. I regard this notion as irrational (not in accordance with both logic and reason). For context, the American Psychological Association thusly defines pain:

[A]n unpleasant sensation resulting from damage to nerve tissue, stimulation of free nerve endings, or excessive stimulation (e.g., extremely loud sounds). Physical pain is elicited by stimulation of pain receptors, which occur in groups of myelinated or unmyelinated fibers throughout the body but particularly in surface tissues.

Pain that is initiated in surface receptors generally is perceived as sharp, sudden, and localized; pain experienced in internal organs tends to be dull, longer lasting, and less localized. Although pain is generally considered a physical phenomenon, it involves various cognitive, affective, and behavioral factors: It is an unpleasant emotional as well as sensory experience.

It may also be a feeling of severe distress and suffering resulting from acute anxiety, loss of a loved one, or other psychological factors (see psychic pain). Because of these various factors, as well as previous experience in pain response, individual reactions vary widely.

Psychologists have made important contributions to understanding pain by demonstrating the psychosocial and behavioral factors in the etiology, severity, exacerbation, maintenance, and treatment of both physical and psychic pain.

In “Pain Away”, it’s inferred that Nav experiences chronic pain (pain that continues to occur despite all medical and pharmacological efforts at treatment). Whether physical or psychic, the rapper ostensibly expresses the irrational belief that someone else can take away his own pain.

I suggest that this assumption may be logical, though it’s also unreasonable. For example, using a modus ponens syllogism (if p, then q; p; therefore, q), if I feel pain (p), then someone else must take my pain away (q). I feel pain (p). Therefore, someone else must take my pain away (q).

What would be required in order to make this a valid proposition? Chiefly, Nav would need to be incapable of personal agency, as well as personal responsibility and accountability (collectively “ownership”). Agency is “the sense that I am the one who is causing or generating an action.”

Ownership is acknowledging my obligation (i.e., responsibility) and then being answerable if I do or do not meet this self-imposed requirement (i.e., accountability). By outsourcing one’s own outcomes with pain to the supposed duty of others to oblige, Nav renders himself helpless.

Thus, when the rapper faces hardship, which is inevitable in life, he irrationally maintains that someone else is responsible and accountable to take pain away—similar to “medicine” and “therapy” which are referenced in the song. Thinking further about this, I’m reminded of a book.

As Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is informed by Stoic philosophy, this blog entry is part of an ongoing series regarding a book entitled The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman.

Stoics take personal agency and ownership of their own outcomes into account rather than relying on external factors to remedy pain. For instance, ancient Stoic philosopher and emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius once stated (page 286):

Whenever you suffer pain, keep in mind that it’s nothing to be ashamed of and that it can’t degrade your guiding intelligence, nor keep it from acting rationally and for the common good.

And in most cases you should be helped by the saying of Epicurus, that pain is never unbearable or unending, so you can remember these limits and not add to them in your imagination.

Remember too that many common annoyances are pain in disguise, such as sleepiness, fever and loss of appetite. When they start to get you down, tell yourself you are giving in to pain.

The one quibble I take with Aurelius’s framing of pain is that, according to the ABC model used in REBT, there isn’t an Action-Consequence connection whereby the experience of pain can “get you down.” Rather, use of a Belief-Consequence connection is what causes this reaction.

Thus, you aren’t ruled by helplessness (the quality or state of being helpless—lacking protection or support, marked by an inability to act or react). Given this rational reframe, I now invite you to use your personal agency and ownership when experiencing physical and psychic pain.

Reliance on others to take “Pain Away” may result in learned helplessness (a phenomenon in which repeated exposure to uncontrollable stressors results in individuals failing to use any control options that may later become available). About this matter, one source clarifies:

[Learned helplessness] was initially thought to be caused by the subject’s acceptance of their powerlessness, by way of their discontinuing attempts to escape or avoid the aversive stimulus, even when such alternatives are unambiguously presented. Upon exhibiting such behavior, the subject was said to have acquired learned helplessness.

Over the past few decades, neuroscience has provided insight into learned helplessness and shown that the original theory was the wrong way about—the brain’s default state is to assume that control is not present. The presence of control is therefore learned. However, it is unlearned when a subject is faced with prolonged aversive stimulation.

You can learn to exercise control regarding pain, as well as unlearn this ability when relinquishing personal agency and ownership. Therefore, I encourage you to empower yourself instead of learning helplessness by relying on others to take pain away from you.

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

As the world’s foremost hip hop-influenced REBT psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW

Photo credit (edited), fair use

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