thumb|upright=1.35|Former [[Kreditbanken building in Stockholm, Sweden, the location of the 1973 Norrmalmstorg robbery (photographed in 2005)]]

Stockholm syndrome is a disputed disorder in pop psychology characterized by the tendency of hostages to develop a psychological bond with their captors. It is named after an attempted bank robbery in 1973, in Stockholm.

Despite its prominence in popular culture, Stockholm syndrome has never been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the authoritative guide for diagnosis of psychiatric conditions used in the United States, and psychologists generally consider evidence for the condition to be dubious or nonexistent. Many famous examples of Stockholm syndrome are either partly or entirely fabricated, including many details of the 1973 bank robbery that gives the syndrome its name. In 1980, psychiatrist Frank Ochberg wrote about the status of the hostages held in the American embassy in Tehran and suggested that transference might aid the management of hostage situations.

According to accounts by Kristin Enmark, one of the hostages, the authorities were careless, and their initial approach to the robbers nearly compromised the hostages' safety. Enmark criticized Sweden's prime minister, Olof Palme, for endangering their lives. Palme believed that if Olsson saw one of his close relatives, he might be willing to surrender the hostages; however, the police made a careless mistake. They misidentified Olsson, and sent a 16-year-old boy who was unrelated into the bank. This caused confusion and resulted in Olsson firing rounds at the boy who barely escaped. Olsson became much more agitated in general. After that, Enmark and the other three hostages were fearful that they were just as likely to be killed by police incompetence as by the robbers. Ultimately, Enmark explained she was more afraid of the police, whose attitude seemed to be a much larger, direct threat to her life than the robbers. Enmark spent decades maintaining that she had no affinity for her captors; she only did what it took to stay alive during the ordeal.

Olsson later said in an interview that he could have easily killed the hostages in the beginning, but over time it became more difficult, as he developed an emotional bond with them:

  • negative feelings by hostages toward law enforcement and other authorities;
  • positive feelings from hostages toward their captor;
  • positive feelings reciprocated by captor toward the hostages.

It is more likely to occur if the hostages are kept together and are not physically abused by their captor.

FBI law enforcement bulletin (1999)

A 1999 report by the FBI containing more than 1,200 hostage incidents found that 8% of kidnapping victims showed signs of Stockholm syndrome.

Allan Wade (2015)

At Dignity Conference 2015, Dr. Allan Wade presented The myth of "Stockholm Syndrome" (and other concepts invented to discredit women victims of violence) after interviewing Kristin Enmark. In this presentation he posits that "Stockholm Syndrome" and related ideas such as "traumatic bonding", "learned helplessness", "battered women's syndrome", "internalized oppression", and "identification with the aggressor/oppressor" shift the focus away from actual events in context to invented pathologies in the minds of victims, particularly women. "Stockholm syndrome" can be seen as one of many concepts used to silence individuals who, as victims, speak publicly about negative social (i.e., institutional) responses.

Jess Hill (2019)

In her 2019 treatise on domestic violence See What You Made Me Do, Australian journalist Jess Hill described the syndrome as a "dubious pathology with no diagnostic criteria", and stated that it is "riddled with misogyny and founded on a lie"; she also noted that a 2008 literature review revealed "most diagnoses [of Stockholm syndrome] are made by the media, not by psychologists or psychiatrists." In particular, Hill's analysis revealed that Stockholm authorities, responded to the robbery in a way that put the hostages at greater risk from the police than from their captors (hostage Kristin Enmark, who during the siege was granted a telephone call with Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, reported that Palme told her that the government would not negotiate with criminals); as well, she observed that Bejerot's diagnosis of Enmark was made without ever having spoken to her. 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.

Lima syndrome is poorly understood, as the main example for research on this variation came from the Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Lima. Two main factors observed in the evaluation were that spending time with the captives may have strengthened the bonds between the captor and captive, however, this had little basis as the majority of captives were released earlier on. Establishing a friendly rapport with a captor could contribute to a positive bond, as most of the captives in this situation were high-level diplomats who were well-versed in their communication skills.

London syndrome

London syndrome is conjectured to be the situation where hostages arouse the kidnappers' antipathy by defying them or arguing with them. The name London syndrome comes from the 1980 siege of the Iranian Embassy in London, in which 26 hostages were taken. This prompted a special forces attack, during which they rescued all but one of the remaining hostages and killed five of the six captors. The one hostage who was killed was the Iranian cultural attache, who was the particular focus of the situation to begin with.

See also

References

  • Radiolab: How Stockholm stuck; transcript