On the morning of August 23, 1973,
Jan-Erik Olsson (who was already on parole for robbery) walked into
Kreditbanken, a bank in Stockholm, Sweden. He
opened fire on two Swedish police officers before taking four bank employees
hostage. As part of the list of demands he issued to authorities, Olsson asked
that Clark
Olofsson, one of his friends from prison, be
brought to him. (Olofsson would become Olsson’s accomplice in the Kreditbanken
hostage situation, and he would go on to rob another bank two years later.)
The hostage
situation would last six days before police would use tear gas to subdue
Olsson and rescue the hostages. The unfolding drama captured the world’s
attention. Over the course of those 130 hours, another strange thing happened. Olsson’s hostages began to feel sympathy for
their captor.
One hostage, Kristin Ehnmark, told reporters after the
ordeal that she and her fellow hostages were more afraid of the police than
Olsson. She and her fellow hostages would later
tell authorities that they were treated kindly by Olsson even though he was holding them captive. For instance, Olsson gave his
jacket to Kristin when she began to shiver,
and when Elizabeth Oldgren (another hostage) became claustrophobic, Olsson allowed her
to walk outside of the vault where
he was holding everyone hostage. The hostages’ sympathy of Olsson continued on
even after their ordeal was over, and some of them even went to visit Olsson in
prison.
The psychiatrists who treated the victims compared their
behavior to the Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) that they saw in soldiers
returning from war. That diagnosis didn’t quite fit since the Kreditbanken
hostage victims felt emotionally indebted to Olsson. They felt that Olsson (not the police) spared them from death. They were
grateful to Olsson for how kind he was to them. This unique set of
symptoms led psychiatrists to label this phenomenon known as Stockholm Syndrome.
Stockholm Syndrome isn’t a mental disorder. It is defined as
the
psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with, identify with, or sympathize
with his or her captor. Stockholm Syndrome occurs when someone who is
held against their will starts to have positive feelings toward the person (or
group) who is holding them captive.
Stockholm Syndrome is
classified as a syndrome, which is a condition
that’s characterized by a set of symptoms that often occur together. In order to be diagnosed with a syndrome like Stockholm
Syndrome. A person has to exhibit most of the major symptoms that are
associated with the syndrome itself. Experts believe that it’s the intensity of
the experience (not the length of it) that’s one of the primary contributors to
whether someone experiences Stockholm Syndrome. Here are the four major symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome:
The
Captor Has Positive Feelings towards the Victim-There are two
ways this works. In one aspect, the
victim perceives that their captor actually cares about them. This has a
lot to do with the “kindness” mentioned earlier. When captors don’t act on their
threats—or when they do small, seemingly nice things for their victims—it can
seem like they actually care about the people they’re holding captive.
The second way this works is when authorities, like Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or
police negotiators, use
tactics to get captors to see their victims as humans. By doing things like asking captors to call their hostages
by their first names, the authorities work to humanize the victims. Doing so
makes captors less likely to kill their victims because they’re afraid of
getting caught. The FBI trains its members to use this tactic to “help preserve
life.”
The Victim Has Negative
Feelings towards Family, Friends, or Authorities-Because the victim
is aligning with their captor, victims
begin to adapt to their way of thinking. Since the captors are afraid of
being caught and prosecuted, the victims often take on the same anxiety as
well. Some kidnappers convince their
victims that they are protecting them from a dangerous world not the
other way around.
Experts explain
that the phenomenon of sympathizing
with the captor is a type of hyper vigilance where victims believe that
the happiness of their captors is critical to their own wellbeing and safety. When
the captor feels happy and safe, the victims are, too. That’s why victims
displaying symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome turn on
people who threaten the captor-captive relationship including the
authorities.
The Victim Has Positive
Feelings towards the Captor-Despite being in a terrifying
situation, someone developing Stockholm
Syndrome will start to sympathize, care about, or feel positively about the
person (or people) who are holding them hostage. These positive feelings
make the victim more likely to comply with their captors’ demands and feel
guilty when they don’t. These feelings come from a perception that the captors are treating them kindly.
These perceived
acts of kindness make victims feel like their captors are caring for or
protecting them even in a bad situation. This can make victims think of their
captors as good people in a bad situation rather than criminals who are
breaking the law. For the victim, these
positive feelings develop subconsciously and are completely outside of their
control. This reaction is their instinctual reaction to a dangerous and
traumatic situation, and it’s a survival tactic.
The Victim Supports or
Helps the Captor-A symptom of Stockholm Syndrome comes when a victim, instead
of trying to escape, tries to help
their captor rather than the authorities. In this case, the victim is
putting the needs of their captor above their own freedom in order to survive. By
this point, someone displaying the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome believes that
their captor might hurt them or people they care about if they don’t comply
with their demands.
More
importantly, the victim has started to
see the world from their captor’s point of view. Helping their captor
isn’t something they’re forced to do. People with Stockholm Syndrome do so out
of their own free will and their survival instinct. This last symptom can be particularly confusing for authorities,
especially when they don’t realize that the victim has Stockholm Syndrome. To
make things more complicated, this symptom can also manifest itself in a desire to help captors even after the victim
has been freed.
“It’s
not always possible to truly know what a person is going through. Even two
people who experience the same event will experience it differently. Don’t let
anyone else choose your happiness. We all have the power to choose how to
feel.” (Elizabeth
Smart)[i]
[i]Sources used:
·
“What Is Stockholm Syndrome? Is
It Real?” by Ashley
Robinson
·
www.fbi.gov
The three major quotes provided in this post were by Stockholm Syndrome
survivors (Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, and Patty Hurst).
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