The Stockholm Syndrome

Stockholm syndrome is a term that had been coined to explain the apparently irrational feelings of some captives for their captors.

The name of the syndrome was derived from the 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. 

Jan-Erik Olsson entered Sveriges Kreditbank in Stockholm, carrying a loaded machine gun, declared a robbery, and took four bank employees as hostages.

The hostages were held at gunpoint, and taken into the bank’s main vault.

Olsson  demanded more than $700,000 in Swedish and foreign currency, a getaway car and the release of Clark Olofsson, who was serving time for robbery and murder. The police delivered Olofsson and then, there were two of them holding the hostages.

Amidst their ordeal, and even when threatened with physical harm, the hostages appeared to develop sympathy and compassion towards their captors, and formed a strange and very unlikely bond with them.

The standoff lasted for six (6) days. The police drilled a hole into the vault and managed to launch a gas attack.  The robbers had no choice but to surrender after more than 130 hours. 

In the end, the convicts and hostages embraced, kissed and shook hands. When the police arrested the gunmen, two female hostages cried, “Don’t hurt them—they didn’t harm us”

Olofsson and Olsson were imprisoned, and their hostages made jailhouse visits to them.

Within months of the siege, psychiatrists dubbed the strange phenomenon “Stockholm Syndrome.” 

Psychologists who have studied the syndrome believe that the bond is initially created when a captor threatens a captive’s life, deliberates, and then chooses not to kill the captive. The captive’s relief at the removal of the death threat is transposed into feelings of gratitude toward the captor for giving him or her life. 

Another case of the “Stockholm Syndrome” was that of the heiress Patty Hearst, who was only 19 years old when she was kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California by Symbionese Liberation Army, a group of revolutionary militants. Hearst not only developed emotional attachment to her captors, she even joined them in a series of robberies. She was eventually arrested and charged. Hearst used the “Stockholm Syndrome as her defense to the charges against her.

She was eventually convicted  and received a prison sentence. After almost two years in prison Hearst, was granted a full Presidential Pardon by President Clinton in January 2001.

According to Steven Norton, a forensic psychologist, the symptoms of Stockhold Syndrome could overlap with those associated with other diagnoses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and “learned helplessness.” 

He also said that it is a survival strategy and coping mechanism that is based on the level of fear, dependency and trauma of the situation.

Sources:

Klein, Christopher. Stockholm Syndrome: The True Story of Hostages Loyal to Their Captor retrieved from history.com

Burton, Neel, M.D. (March 24, 2012) What Underlies Stockholm Syndrome? Psychology Today

Westcott, Kathryn. (August 22, 2013) What is Stockholm syndrome? BBC News Magazine

Nierenberg, Cari (June 27, 2019) What is Stockholm syndrome? Retrieved from livescience.com