I see this differently. I think that mayby the Pdoc could have done a better job of making sure that both of you understood each other correctly, but I think what she said was intended to be helpful.

Pdocs don't usually do therapy these days, and don't really have the time to talk about most of what would be addressed in therapy, and usually they don't have the same training that therapists do. They mostly prescribe medication.

What I'm hearing here is that abuse history doesn't get fixed by medication (although it might help with managing current symptoms), and you would be better off if you had therapy to address what happened to you and how it is affecting you now.

Also, I think she was trying to point you in the direction of a starting place. Learned helplessness, applied to people, means that when you have been in a no-win situation and you couldn't get out of it, you learn that nothing that you do is going to work, and there is no point in trying. It is very sad, but that is how that stuff affects us. There is an up side though. If you can learn helplessness, then you can also learn to overcome it. But it takes work and someone to help you to re-learn. That's a good thing to talk about in therapy.

Martin Seligman originally presented the concept of "learned helplessness." He didn't stop there. He noticed that animals that had been affected by learned helplessness recovered when he worked with them and taught them that they could escape the painful or uncomfortable situation, and get what they wanted. Now Martin Seligman teaches about "learned optimism." If you google his name or "learned optimism" or "learned helplessness" you will find a wealth of information.