asus-The Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage exhibits loyalty to the hostage-taker, in spite of the danger (or at least risk) in which the hostage has been placed. Stockholm syndrome is also sometimes discussed in reference to other situations with similar tensions, such as battered person syndrome, child abuse cases, and bride kidnapping.
Origin of the name
The syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg, Stockholm, Sweden, in which the bank robbers held bank employees hostage from August 23 to August 28, 1973. In this case, the victims became emotionally attached to their victimizers, and even defended their captors after they were freed from their six-day ordeal. The term was coined by the criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot, who assisted the police during the robbery, and referred to the syndrome in a news broadcast.
It is sometimes referred to as Helsinki Syndrome; however, this may simply be due to the erroneous naming of the syndrome in popular media, for example by a news reader in the first Die Hard film.
Famous possible cases
Patty Hearst helped the SLA rob a bank two months after her kidnappingMillionaire heir Patty Hearst, after having been kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Her unsuccessful legal defense was that she suffered from Stockholm syndrome and was coerced into aiding the SLA. She was convicted and imprisoned for her actions in the robbery, though her sentence was commuted in February 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, and she received a Presidential pardon from Bill Clinton.
Elizabeth Smart, a 14-year-old girl, was allegedly kidnapped and repeatedly raped by the mentally ill Brian David Mitchell who coerced and molested her during the months of June 2002 to March 2003; after initial harsh imprisonment, Smart spent several months living physically unrestrained with her captors. However, this may not be a case of Stockholm Syndrome because she kept a journal in French about how much she hated her abductors, and she claims to have only co-operated out of fear.[1]
Japanese abducted to North Korea during the late 1970s and early 1980s. After five of them were allowed to return to Japan in October 2002, they exhibited behavior of submission to the North Korean regime and, given that the regime would not allow their North Korean-born children to join them in Japan right away, attempted to go back there to join them; however, their Japanese families, seeing this as symptoms of brainwashing, restrained them, and eventually the former abductees shed their North Korean identities symbolically by shedding the pins with pictures of previous dictator Kim Il Sung on them during a press conference and denouncing the North Korean regime as a "criminal state" in subsequent interviews, which eventually led to the release of their children in 2004.
Japanese embassy hostage crisis in December 1996 is currently touted as an example of a so-called Lima syndrome in which the opposite effects from the Stockholm syndrome came into light. Rather than the captives becoming submissive, this incident showed signs of the MRTA guerillas becoming more sympathetic to the plights and needs of their hostages.
Other uses
Outside of the criminal context, a form of the syndrome may take place in military basic training, in which "training is a mildly traumatic experience intended to produce a bond," with the goal of forming military units which will remain loyal to each other even in life-threatening situations.[citation needed]
Loyalty to a more powerful abuser — in spite of the danger that this loyalty puts the victim in — is common among victims of domestic abuse, battered partners and child abuse (dependent children). In many instances the victims choose to remain loyal to their abuser, and choose not to leave him or her, even when they are offered a safe placement in foster homes or safe houses. This syndrome was described by psychoanalysts of the object relations theory school (see Fairbairn) as the phenomenon of psychological identification with the more powerful abuser.
Evolutionary and psychoanalytic explanations
For an interpretation of the syndrome from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, see capture-bonding.
According to the psychoanalytic view of the syndrome, the tendency might well be the result of employing the strategy evolved by newborn babies to form an emotional attachment to the nearest powerful adult in order to maximize the probability that this adult will enable - at the very least - the survival of the child, if not also prove to be a good parental figure. This syndrome is considered a prime example for the defense mechanism of identification.
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