Former Kreditbanken building in Stockholm, Sweden, the location of the 1973 Norrmalmstorg robbery (photographed in 2005)
Stockholm syndrome is a condition which causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors during captivity.
These alliances result from a bond formed between captor and captives
during intimate time together, but they are generally considered
irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims. The
FBI's Hostage Barricade Database System and Law Enforcement Bulletin indicate that roughly 8% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome. About ninety-six percent of victims involve suicide, domestic violence,
and include people with previous relationships with the abuser.
This term was first used by the media in 1973 when four hostages were taken during a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. The hostages defended their captors after being released and would not agree to testify in court against them.
Stockholm syndrome is paradoxical because the sympathetic sentiments
that captives feel towards their captors are the opposite of the fear
and disdain which an onlooker might feel towards the captors.
There are four key components that characterize Stockholm syndrome:
- A hostage's development of positive feelings towards the captor
- No previous relationship between hostage and captor
- A refusal by hostages to cooperate with police forces and other government authorities (unless the captors themselves happen to be members of police forces or government authorities).
- A hostage's belief in the humanity of the captor because they cease to perceive the captor as a threat when the victim holds the same values as the aggressor
Stockholm syndrome is a "contested illness" due to doubt about the legitimacy of the condition.
It has also come to describe the reactions of some abuse victims beyond
the context of kidnappings or hostage-taking. Actions and attitudes
similar to those suffering from Stockholm syndrome have also been found
in victims of sexual abuse, human trafficking, terror, and political and
religious oppression.
History
Stockholm bank robbery
In 1973, Jan-Erik Olsson, a convict on parole, took four employees of the bank (three women and one man) hostage during a failed bank robbery in Kreditbanken, one of the largest banks in Stockholm, Sweden. He negotiated the release from prison of his friend Clark Olofsson
to assist him. They held the hostages captive for six days (23–28
August) in one of the bank's vaults. When the hostages were released,
none of them would testify against either captor in court; instead they
began raising money for their defense.
Nils Bejerot, a Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist coined the term after the Stockholm police
asked him for assistance with analyzing the victims' reactions to the
1973 bank robbery and their status as hostages. As the idea of brainwashing
was not a new concept, Bejerot, speaking on "a news cast after the
captives' release" instinctively reduced the hostages' reactions to a
result of being brainwashed by their captors. He called it Norrmalmstorgssyndramat, meaning "the Norrmalmstorg syndrome"; it later became known outside of Sweden as the Stockholm syndrome. It was originally defined by psychiatrist Frank Ochberg to aid the management of hostage situations.
Olsson later said in an interview:
It was the hostages' fault. They did everything I told them to. If they hadn't, I might not be here now. Why didn't any of them attack me? They made it hard to kill. They made us go on living together day after day, like goats, in that filth. There was nothing to do but get to know each other.
The 2018 film Stockholm is loosely based on the events of the bank robbery.
Other examples
Mary McElroy
Mary McElroy
was abducted from her home in 1933 at age 25 by four men who held a gun
to her, demanded her compliance, took her to an abandoned farmhouse,
and chained her to a wall. She defended her kidnappers when she was
released, explaining that they were only businessmen. She then continued
to visit her captors while they were in jail. She eventually committed
suicide and left the following note: “My four kidnappers are probably
the only people on Earth who don't consider me an utter fool. You have
your death penalty now – so, please, give them a chance."
Natascha Kampusch
Natascha Kampusch
was kidnapped in 1998 at age 10 and kept in an insulated, dark room
under the garage of Wolfgang Přiklopil. She would receive a variation of
kind, physically and sexually abusive, controlling, and permissive
treatment from her captor. Eight years after her kidnapping, Kampusch
left and Přiklopil committed suicide. After her kidnapper's death,
Kampusch lamented and kept a picture of him in her wallet.
Kampusch now owns the house in which she was imprisoned, saying,
"I know it's grotesque – I must now pay for electricity, water and taxes
on a house I never wanted to live in". It was reported that she claimed
the house from Přiklopil's estate because she wanted to protect it from
vandals and being torn down; she also noted that she has visited it
since her escape.
When the third anniversary of her escape approached, it was revealed
she had become a regular visitor at the property and was cleaning it out
possibly to move in herself.
In January 2010, Kampusch said she had retained the house because
it was such a big part of her formative years, also stating that she
would fill in the cellar if it is ever sold, adamant that it will never
become a macabre museum to her lost adolescence. The cellar was indeed filled in, though Kampusch still owns the house.
Patty Hearst
Patty Hearst, the granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst, was taken and held hostage by the Symbionese Liberation Army,
"an urban guerilla group", in 1974. She was recorded denouncing her
family as well as the police under her new name, "Tania", and was later
seen working with the SLA to rob banks in San Francisco. She publicly
asserted her sympathetic feelings towards the SLA and their pursuits as
well. After her 1975 arrest, pleading Stockholm syndrome did not work as
a proper defense in court, much to the chagrin of her defense lawyer, F. Lee Bailey. Her seven-year prison sentence was later commuted, and she was eventually presidentially pardoned by Bill Clinton, who was informed that she was not acting under her own free will.
Colleen Stan
In 1977, Colleen Stan
was hitchhiking to visit a friend in southern California when she was
kidnapped by Cameron Hooker and his wife Janice and forced to live in a
wooden restraining box underneath their bed. For seven years she was
repeatedly raped and tortured by Cameron and forced to live life as a
sort of domestic/sex slave. Even though she was allowed to socialize
with Janice and even visit her mother, she still continued to live in
the box and did not attempt to escape. She was eventually freed by
Janice, who asked Colleen to not disclose her abuse as Janice was
attempting to reform Cameron. Colleen remained silent until Janice
finally decided to turn Cameron over to the police.
Sexual abuse victims
There is evidence that some victims of childhood sexual abuse
come to feel a connection with their abuser. They often feel flattered
by the adult attention or are afraid that disclosure will create family
disruption. In adulthood, they resist disclosure for emotional and
personal reasons.
Lima syndrome
An inversion of Stockholm syndrome, called Lima syndrome, has
been proposed, in which abductors develop sympathy for their hostages.
An abductor may also have second thoughts or experience empathy towards
their victims.
Lima syndrome was named after an abduction at the Japanese embassy in Lima,
Peru, in 1996, when members of a militant movement took hostage
hundreds of people attending a party at the official residence of
Japan's ambassador.
Symptoms and behaviors
Victims of the formal definition of Stockholm syndrome develop
"positive feelings toward their captors and sympathy for their causes
and goals, and negative feelings toward the police or authorities". These symptoms often follow escaped victims back into their previously ordinary lives.
Physical and psychological effects
- Cognitive: confusion, blurred memory, refusal to accept the reality of events, and recurring flashbacks.
- Emotional: lack of feeling, fear, helplessness, hopelessness, aggression, depression, guilt, dependence on captor, and development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
- Social: anxiety, irritability, cautiousness, and estrangement.
- Physical: increase in effects of pre-existing conditions; development of health conditions due to possible restriction from food, sleep, and exposure to outdoors.
Coping mechanism
Through
a psychoanalytic lens, it can be argued that Stockholm syndrome arises
strictly as a result of survival instincts. Strentz states, "the
victim’s need to survive is stronger than his impulse to hate the person
who has created the dilemma." A positive emotional bond between captor
and captive is a "defense mechanism of the ego under stress".
These sentimental feelings are not strictly for show, however. Since
captives often fear that their affection will be perceived as fake, they
eventually begin to believe that their positive sentiments are genuine.
The conception of Stockholm syndrome has grown to include victims of
kidnappings or hostage instances, domestic or child abuse, human
trafficking, incest, prisoners of war, political terrorism, cult
members, concentration camp prisoners, slaves, and prostitutes. It is believed that women are especially prone to developing the condition.
Typically, Stockholm syndrome develops in captives when they
engage in "face-to-face contact" with their captors, and when captors
make captives doubt the likelihood of their survival by terrorizing them
into "helpless, powerless, and submissive" states. This enables captors
to appear merciful when they perform acts of kindness or fail to "beat,
abuse, or rape" the victims.
Ideas like "dominance hierarchies and submission strategies" assist in
devising explanations for the illogical reasoning behind the symptoms of
those suffering from Stockholm syndrome as a result of any oppressive
relationship. Partial activation of the capture-bonding psychological trait may lie behind battered woman syndrome, military basic training, fraternity hazing, and sex practices such as sadism/masochism or bondage/discipline.
Possible evolutionary explanations
Evolutionarily
speaking, research evidence exists to support the genuine scientific
nature of Stockholm syndrome. Responses similar to those in human
captives have been detected in some reptiles and mammals, primates in
particular. Abuse and subsequent submission and appeasement by the
victim have been observed among chimpanzees, leading to the theory that
the Stockholm syndrome may have its roots in evolutionary needs.
Life in the "environment of evolutionary adaptiveness" (EEA) is thought by researchers such as Israeli military historian Azar Gat
to be similar to that of the few remaining hunter-forager societies,
who asserts that war and abductions were typical of human pre-history.
Being captured by neighbouring tribes was a relatively common event for
women. In some of those tribes (Yanomamo,
for instance), practically everyone in the tribe is descended from a
captive within the last three generations. As high as one in ten of
females were abducted and incorporated into the tribe that captured
them. Being captured and having their children killed may have been
common; women who resisted capture risked being killed. When selection is intense and persistent, adaptive traits (such as capture-bonding) become universal to the population or species.
Loving to survive
First
published in 1994, author Dee Graham uses the Stockholm syndrome label
to describe group or collective responses to trauma, rather than
individual reactions. Graham focuses specifically on the impact of
Stockholm syndrome on battered and abused women as a community. She
claimed that in both the psychological and societal senses, these women
are defined by their sense of fear surrounding the threat of male
violence. This constant fear is what drives these women to perform
actions that they know will be pleasing to men in order to avoid
emotional, physical, or sexual assault as a result of male anger. Graham
draws parallels between women and kidnapping victims in the sense that
these women bond to men to survive, as captives bond to their captors to
survive.
Recovery
Recovering
from Stockholm syndrome ordinarily involves "psychiatric or
psychological counseling", in which the patient is helped to realize
that their actions and feelings stemmed from inherent human survival
techniques. The process of recovery includes reinstating normalcy into
the lives of victims, including helping the victim learn how to decrease
their survival-driven behaviors.
Criticism
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM5, 2013)
This book is widely used as the "classification system for psychological disorders" by the American Psychiatric Association. Stockholm syndrome has not historically appeared in the manual, as many believe it falls under posttraumatic stress disorder.
Before the fifth edition (DSM5) was released, Stockholm syndrome was
under consideration to be included under 'Disorders of Extreme Stress,
Not Otherwise Specified'. The work was updated in 2013, but Stockholm syndrome was not present.
Namnyak, Tufton, Szekely, Toal, Worboys and Sampson (2008)
A
research group led by Namnyak has found that although there is a lot of
media coverage of Stockholm syndrome, there has not been a lot of
professional research into the phenomenon. What little research has been
done is often contradictory and does not always agree on what Stockholm
syndrome is. The term has grown beyond kidnappings to all definitions
of abuse. There is no clear definition of symptoms to diagnose the
syndrome.
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (1999)
A
report by the FBI found that only 8% of kidnapping victims showed signs
of Stockholm syndrome. The sensational nature of dramatic cases causes
the public to perceive this phenomenon as the rule rather than the
exception. For Stockholm syndrome to happen, FBI researchers have
identified three key factors: the passage of time, continual contact,
and small acts of kindness without direct and persistent abuse.
Robbins and Anthony (1982)
Robbins
and Anthony, who had historically studied a condition similar to
Stockholm syndrome, known as destructive cult disorder, observed in
their 1982 study that the 1970s were rich with apprehension surrounding
the potential risks of brainwashing. They assert that media attention to
brainwashing during this time resulted in the fluid reception of
Stockholm syndrome as a psychological condition.
Victims
It is possible that the label Stockholm syndrome is used too freely in cases in which it may not apply. Elizabeth Smart
has been held as a classic example of Stockholm syndrome; however, she
denies that she ever had any emotional attachment to her abusers.
Although she chose not to run away when she had the chance, she
emphasized that the threats from her captors to her and her family, and
the direct presence of her captors influenced her decision to stay. Once
freed from her captors, she gladly reunited with her family and felt no
empathy for her abusers.
