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.
Background
In 1973, Jan-Erik Olsson, a convict on parole, took four employees (three women and one man) hostage during a failed bank robbery of Kreditbanken, one of the largest banks in Stockholm. He negotiated for his friend Clark Olofsson to be released from prison to assist him. They held the hostages captive for six days (23–28 August) in one of the bank vaults. Nils Bejerot, a Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist, invented the term after the Stockholm police asked him for assistance with analyzing the victims' reactions to the robbery and their status as hostages. Bejerot never met, spoke to, or corresponded with the hostages during or after the incident, yet diagnosed them with a condition he invented. Bejerot, speaking on a news cast after the captives' release, described the hostages' reactions as a result of being brainwashed by their captors. He called it Norrmalmstorgssyndromet (after Norrmalmstorg Square, where the attempted robbery took place), meaning "The Norrmalm Square syndrome"; it later became known outside Sweden as Stockholm syndrome. 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:
They made it hard to kill. They made us go on living together day after day, like goats, in that filth. There was nothing to do but get to know each other.
Patty Hearst
Patty Hearst, the granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst, was taken and held hostage by the Symbionese Liberation Army, "an urban guerrilla group", in 1974. She was recorded denouncing her family as well as the police using her new name, "Tania", and was later seen working with the SLA to rob banks in San Francisco. She publicly asserted her "sympathetic feelings" toward the SLA and their pursuits as well. After her 1975 arrest, pleading Stockholm syndrome (although the term was not used yet, due to the recency of the event) was inadequate as a defense in court, much to the chagrin of her defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey. Her seven-year prison sentence was later commuted, and she was eventually pardoned by President Bill Clinton, who was informed that she was not acting of her own free will.
Symptoms and behaviors Stockholm syndrome is paradoxical because the sympathetic sentiments that captives might feel towards their captors are the opposite of the fear which an onlooker might feel towards the captors. Stockholm Syndrome is identified by the separate or combined presence of the following:
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.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM 5, 2013) The DSM-5 is widely used as the "classification system for psychological disorders" by the American Psychiatric Association. Stockholm syndrome has never been included in the manual, as many believe it falls under trauma bonding or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Assessment
Robbins and Anthony (1982) Robbins and Anthony, who had historically studied a condition similar to Stockholm syndrome, known as destructive cult disorder, observed in their 1982 study that the 1970s were rich with apprehension surrounding the potential risks of brainwashing. They assert that media attention to brainwashing during this time resulted in the fluid reception of Stockholm syndrome as a psychological condition.
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