DEFINITION

The Syndrome of Stockholm is the psychological state in which the sequestration victim, or person stopped against her own will, develops a complicity relation with his kidnapper. Sometimes, the prisoners can end up by helping the captores to reach his ends or evade the police.

According to the psychoanalytic current the syndrome of Stockholm would be then a luck of mechanism of unconscious defender of the kidnapped one, who cannot answer the aggression of the kidnappers and who defends himself also from the possibility of suffering an emotional shock. This way, an identification takes place with the aggressor, a tie to the effect that the kidnapped one begins having feelings of identification, of friendliness, of taste as his kidnapper.

ORÍGEN

The syndrome has been called this way from the theft of the bank Kreditbanken in Norrmalms (Stockholm), Sweden, that passed from 23 on August 28, 1973. In this case, the victims - three women and a man - defended his enclosed captores after finished his sequestration, which lasted six days. They showed also a reticent conduct before the legal procedures. It is said even that one of the women kidnapped would have committed herself with one of the captores. The term was minted by the criminologist and psychologist Nils Bejerot, collaborator of the police during the theft, on having referred to the syndrome in a news emission. He was an adopted child of that time for many psychologists in the whole world.

CAUSES

• Both the victim and the author of the crime chase the goal of going out unharmed of the incident, for it they cooperate.
• The hostages try to be protected, in the context of uncontrollable situations, where they try to fulfill the desires of his captores.
• The entire loss of the control that the hostage suffers during a sequestration, is difficult to digest. It becomes bearable at the moment when the victim identifies with the motives of the author of the crime.

SITUATIONS

In accordance with the psychologist Nils Bejerot, the Syndrome of Stockholm is more common in persons who have been victims of some type of abuse, such is the case of: hostages, members of sect, psychological abuse in children, war prisoners, prostitutes, prisoners concentration camps, victims of incest, and domestic violence.

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