Medical Investigations:What is the Stockholm Syndrome?

On August 23, 1973, in the Swedish city of Stockholm, there was a robbery with hostages. Jan Erik Olsson, an inmate permission entered the bank Kreditbanken Norrmalmstorg in the city center. Being alerted the police, two officers arrived almost immediately. The robber wounded one of them and sent the second sit and sing. Olsson had taken four hostages and demanded three million Swedish kronor, a vehicle and two guns.

The government was forced to collaborate and granted him out there at Clark Olofsson, friend of the offender. Thus began the negotiations between robber and police. To the surprise of all, one of the hostages, Kristin Ehnmark, not only showed their fear of police action to end up in tragedy but came to resist the idea of ​​a possible rescue. He said, she felt safe.

After six days of retention and threats kidnapper, whose side was the Ehnmark own, police decided to act and when they started gasearles, criminals surrendered. No one was injured. Both Olsson and Olofsson were convicted and sentenced, but later the charges against Olofsson, who reoffend withdrew. Jan Olsson, however, after serving 10 years in prison would fully rehabilitated prison and maintaining a legion of fans.

Throughout the trial, the hostages were reluctant to testify against those who were their captors and even today say they were more terrified by the police that the robbers who held them for almost a week. The criminologist Nils Bejerot coined shortly after and as a result of that case, the term Stockholm Syndrome to refer to hostages who feel this type of identification with their captors.

But the case of Stockholm bank is not the only thing that has occurred. In 1974, Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of media mogul William Randolph Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation (SLA) Army. After donate six million dollars to the family terrorist organization, not heard from her. Two months later she was photographed, assault rifle in hand, during a robbery of a bank SLA. He had joined the organization and changed its name to Tania.

The Bejerot itself states that this syndrome is more common in people who have suffered some form of abuse, hostage, cult members, psychologically abused children, victims of incest or prisoners of war or concentration camps. Cooperation between the hostage or victim and the perpetrator is in large part because they share the common goal of emerge unscathed from the incident. The no control over the situation by the kidnapped leads apparently to try to fulfill the wishes of their captors, on the other hand, are presented as the only ones who can prevent a tragic escalation of events. Thus, identification of the victim with the motives of the perpetrator and appreciation to the captor that sometimes takes extreme situations occurs.