Religious education as a prevention of learned helplessness and depression: Theoretical consideration

Abstract

In comparison to the expected outcome of the long lasting suppression and persecution, Jews during centuries demonstrated the relative resistance to stress, learned helplessness and depression. This article suggests that this resistance may be related to the peculiarity of the traditional Jewish religious education that stimulates intellectual search activity as well as right-hemispheric polysemantic thinking in equilibrium with the left hemispheric verbal thinking.