What's the “Stockholm Syndrome”?

Many people know Stockholm's syndrome from a large number of high profile kidnappings and from the cases of hostage-taking that usually included women in which it was mentioned.

The term largely associated with Patty Hearst, an heir to a California newspaper that was kidnapped by revolutionary militants in 1974. She seemed to have developed sympathy for her kidnappers and joined in the robbery. Then she was caught and sentenced to prison.

But her defense lawyer, Bailey, had claimed that 19-year-olds were brainwashed and that she was suffering from “Stockholm Syndrome” a term that had been later invented to explain the irrational feelings of hostages against the kidnappers.

Finally, the term was applied to media reports on Natascha Campuschin. Campusch é who was kidnapped as 10 years old by Wolfgang Priklopil was kept in the basement for eight years was reportedly crying when she realized her kidnapper had died, and even lit a candle in memory of him.

Although the term is well known, the incident that led to its invention remains relatively unknown.

Outside Sweden, few people know the names of bank employees, Birgitta Lundblad, Elisabeth Oldgren, Christine Ehnmark and Sven Safstrom.

It was August 23rd in 1973 when these four workers were taken hostage to Kredbank by 32-year-old criminal Jan-Eric Olsson who was later joined by a prisonmate in that kidnapping. Six days later, when the stay in the bank ended, it became clear that the victims had formed some kind of positive connection with their interceptors.

Stockholm syndrome arose as an explanation.

The phrase is reported to have been invented by criminologist and psychiatrist Neils Beyert.

Psychiatricist Frank Ochberg was intrigued by the phenomenon and wanted to define the syndrome for the FBI and Scotland Yard in the 1970s, translate Periscope from the BBC.

At the time, he was helping the American National Force for strategy in hostage situations.

His criteria included the following: the first “people would feel something terrifying coming from heaven. They're sure they'll die. ”

Then, they experience a kind of infantilization when, as a child, they are unable to eat, speak or go to the toilet without permission. ”

Small acts of kindness such as providing food provide the primitive “gratitude for the gift of life,” he explained.

“Penges experience the positive and primitive but powerful feeling for their interceptors. They're in denial that he is the person who put them in that situation. In their minds, they are the ones who will let them live. ”

But he said Stockholm Syndrome cases are rare.

So, what happened in Stockholm, Sweden?

In a 2009 interview, one of the hostages, Christine Ehnmark explained: “is a kind of context in which all your values, morals, differ in one form. ”

It was Ehnmark who, according to reports, formed her strongest relationship with the Olsson kidnapper.

Journalist Daniel Lang for New Yorker has presented the fullest confession of how kidnappers interacted with the kidnapped in this case.

The hostages had talked about the way they were treated by Olsson, and at that time they seemed to believe they owed their lives to the perpetrators Olsson and his dot.

On one occasion, the claustrophobic Elisabeth Oldgren was allowed to leave the vault where they were staying and that had become their prison, but only with a rope attached around their necks.

She says she had thought at the time that “was very kind of” from Olsson that allowed her to move across the floor.

Safstrom says he even felt gratitude when Olsson told him he planned to shoot him.

But even the feelings of hijackers change, says the report.

Olsson had said that at the beginning of the kidnapping he could have killed “quietly” hostages, but that had changed over days.

“Olsson spoke harshly,” recalls his psychiatrist. It was the hostages' fault,” said. “They did everything I told them. If they hadn't, I wouldn't be here right now. Why did none of them attack me? They made it hard for me to kill. They made us live together, day after day, like goats, in that shit. We had nothing to do but meet each other. ””