Useful Notes / Stockholm Syndrome

The term 'Stockholm syndrome', eponymously named after a failed bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, has been used to describe the positive emotional bond a kidnap victim may develop towards their captor. It is speculated that this bond develops as part of the victim's defence mechanism to allow them to sympathize with their captor, leading to an acceptance of the situation, limiting defiance/aggression toward the captor and thus maintaining survival in an otherwise potentially high-risk scenario.

— Intro to 2008 paper "'Stockholm syndrome': Psychiatric diagnosis or urban myth?"

Stockholm syndrome is a proposed condition in which kidnapped victims develop loyalty, sympathy, or affection (sometimes even sexual attraction) for a captor.

The term was initially coined to refer to hostages and captors in a Hostage Situation. Over time, with concept creep, it has come to be applied to virtually any situation where Alice feels sympathy or fondness for someone Bob thinks she ought not feel it for. The most popular extension is women who decide to stay with a partner who abuses them.

As initially coined, the term was closely linked to brainwashing. Over time, the explanation has shifted toward it being a natural, protective response, rooted in our species' long evolutionary history of dominance hierarchies.

The concept has never had wide-scale clinical acceptance, and never appeared in the DSM or any international classification system of psychiatry.

History

The Stockholm syndrome label was constructed not to describe a carefully studied or researched phenomenon but to characterize a specific incidence—the seemingly inexplicable behavior of the released hostages in the botched Kreditbanken robbery. The term appeared first not in the pages of a scientific journal but in the context of a television interview.

— 2012 paper from The Sociological Quarterly, "Stockholm Syndrome As Vernacular Resource"

Stockholm syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery, a 6-day long Hostage Situation in 1973 at the Kreditbanken bank in Norrmalmstorg Square, Stockholm, Sweden. Jan-Erik "Janne" Olsson (a dude on release from prison) took 4 bank employees captive (Birgitta Lundblad, Elisabeth Oldgren, Kristin Enmark, and Sven Säfström). The captives came to trust their captors more than the police. At the end of the standoff, when they parted ways, the convicts and hostages embraced and (in a European way) kissed goodbye. They captives later refused to testify against their captors.

Because Sweden's usually pretty peaceful, the police weren't trained in hostage negotiations. In exchange for the captive's release, Olsson demanded a bunch of money, the release of his prison buddy Clark Olofsson, and a getaway car. Olofsson was delivered; the getaway car was not. Olsson and Olofsson wanted to leave in a getaway car with the hostages to ensure there was no Car Chase Shoot-Out, with the promise they'd release the hostages later once they were away. The hostages trusted them and were on board with this plan. The police refused. In rejecting this peaceful release plan, the police basically ensured this had to end in some dangerous storming-the-building thing — an escalation where the captives might get killed.

There's a recorded phone call between Enmark and Sweden's then-prime minister Olaf Palme where she says, "What I'm scared of is that the police will attack and cause us to die." Palme says they can't comply with the demands of criminals and that, "You will have to content yourself that you will have died at your post." She was appalled.

Nils Bejerot, psychiatrist consultant to the Stockholm police, never met with the captives himself but publicly declared that they had "Norrmalmstorg Syndrome" (later "Stockholm Syndrome") — a condition he had just made up. The concept was coined in part to deflect blame from the police. The captives responded as they did because they were brainwashed, this was a syndrome. Not because they had understandable or legitimate criticisms about how the police handled the situation — no, definitely not that.

In fiction

Given its shaky origins and lack of clinical recognition, Stockholm Syndrome is part of the field of pop-culture, not the field of psychology.

In fiction, the idea of a captive falling in love with their captor is a popular one, and has been since long before the 1973 Norrmalmstorg robbery.

Ben Rogers: Say, do we kill the women, too?
Tom Sawyer: Kill the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any more.

— Discussed Trope in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Many of these stories feel forced, starting with captivity and jumping straight to love. The most realistic depictions include not only the kindnesses, but also the extended time needed, and clear isolation from outside influences.

Tropes associated with depictions of Stockholm syndrome:

The main associated tropes are:

• Abduction Is Love: The invoked version, where someone does a kidnapping with the goal of forming a relationship with their captive.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Two people end up becoming lovers or friends after one kidnaps the other.

Other associated tropes include:

• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?
• Brainwashed
• Conditioned to Accept Horror
• Happiness in Slavery
• Honor Thy Abuser
• Love Martyr
• More than Mind Control
• Not Brainwashed
• Not Used to Freedom
• Romanticized Abuse
• The Victim Must Be Confused

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