The Stockholm Syndrome: coping mechanism or astute strategy to blame the victims?

In August 1973, Erik Olsson, a renowned criminal, tried to rob a bank. However, he ended up with hostages, blocked for five days with no way out. When the police finally broke the captives free, the most peculiar thing happened: the prisoners hugged the criminals and begged the police to treat them nicely. Nils Bejerot, a Swedish psychiatrist, observed and established what would soon be known as the Stockholm (or Norrmalmstorg) syndrome. While this event was mildly publicized, the capture of Patricia Hearst a year later achieved to put the syndrome on the map. The diagnosis came as follows: hostages can develop a positive feeling, sometimes even of love, and tend to forget that the aggressors are the ones who put them in this situation first. The syndrome has since been highly fantasised, even used in movies such as ‘The world is not enough’ to create entertaining blockbusters.

However, there is one major problem: the Stockholm syndrome does not exist. Its absence is denoted in the International Classification of Diseases as well as in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In a study published in 2008 in Acta PsychiatricaScandinavica intitled: ‘Stockholm syndrome’: psychiatric diagnosis or urban myth?, scientists have reached to the conclusion that the syndrome results rather from a mediatic construction than from a real medical diagnosis, and that, even though there are effects on a person’s detainment, this cannot be simplified to ‘becoming positively attached to one’s aggressor’. So why have multiple psychiatrists reached this odd conclusion? 

Let’s look at the original source: Bejerot, the psychiatrist who was on the scene while the hostage situation was happening. But not so close, as he never actually exchanged with the victims. This is possibly why his analysis is so flawed. Because the only way to understand what was really going on is to do what Nils never did: interrogate the actual hostages. In particular, Kirsten Enmark, who spoke 40 years later at the BBC and then published her autobiography, rejected Nils’ analysis entirely. She reestablished the truth as to what really occurred that summer of 73’. She reshaped this ‘presumed loving attachment’ as really being a survival strategy. One must understand that what the hostages really were scared of was the acts of the police rather than those of the robbers. Being on the less dangerous side seemed like the right stratagem not to get killed. Because after being told by the Prime Minister that ‘one should be happy to die at their work, it is understandable why hostages would rather side with the criminals rather than the inefficient police force. 

Cecilia Ase, gender studies professor at Stockholm University, believes that these hostages were considered in a very ‘sexualised dimension’. And that is problematic. Because if we look at the other incidents that happen after, Stockholm syndrome was attributed to women – but never to men. Patricia Hearst, Natasha Kampush… but has also been extended to battered women and abused children. And this shapes the way we consider a victim – especially awoman’s – testimony. Because if we think of them as distressing ladies who fell into the arms of their aggressor rather than clever-minded survivors, this will inevitably lead to silencing them. Therefore, one might consider that this pretend ‘scientific discovery’ was really a way for the State to transform survival instincts into a sexualised pathology to put the blame on the victim rather than the State.

In the words of Dr. Allan Wade, the Stockholm syndrome was an astute way of silencing an ‘indignant, angry, exhausted, courageous woman […] it was a silencing strategy and had nothing to do with psychology’. While symptoms such as post-traumatic stress disorder or the concept of appeasement should be things to look at, one might think twice before applying a never-recognized syndrome reducing a traumatic experience to a fall-in-love experiment. Because only the victims will be able to define what happened in their minds. And silencing the victims is also a way to silence the truth. 

Camille Godin

Second Year English Law & French Law