TIL Stockholm Syndrome is not broadly regarded by relevant experts as a real diagnosable phenomenon and that, in particular, the Norrmalmstorg Bank hostage case that gave us the term Stockholm Syndrome was probably just people acting tactically, and later reacting to police and politician’s indifference to their safety.
The criminologist who invented the concept, Nils Bejerot, never observed the captives or even met them, and just based his comments on police reports and the news. He in particular was criticised by the captives as his advice as a police consultant had endangered their lives, they believed.
Stockholm syndrome has never been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM, the standard tool for diagnosis of psychiatric illnesses and disorders in the U.S., mainly due to the lack of a consistent body of academic research. This term was first used by the media in 1973 when four hostages were taken during a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. The hostages defended their captors after being released and would not agree to testify in court against them. It was noted that in this case, however, the police were perceived to have acted with little care for the hostages’ safety, providing an alternative reason for their unwillingness to testify. Stockholm syndrome is paradoxical because the sympathetic sentiments that captives feel towards their captors are the opposite of the fear and disdain which an onlooker might feel towards the captors.
In 1973, Jan-Erik Olsson, a convict on parole, took four employees (three women and one man) of Kreditbanken, one of the largest banks in Stockholm, Sweden, hostage during a failed bank robbery. He negotiated the release from prison of his friend Clark Olofsson to assist him. They held the hostages captive for six days (23–28 August) in one of the bank’s vaults. When the hostages were released, none of them would testify against either captor in court; instead, they began raising money for their defense.
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 1973 bank robbery and their status as hostages. As the idea of brainwashing was not a new concept, 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 Norrmalmstorg syndrome”; it later became known outside Sweden as Stockholm syndrome. It was originally defined by psychiatrist Frank Ochberg to aid the management of hostage situations.
This analysis was provided by Nils Bejerot after he was criticized on Swedish radio by Kristin Enmark, one of the hostages. Enmark claims she had strategically established a rapport with the captors. She had criticized Bejerot for endangering their lives by behaving aggressively and agitating the captors. She had criticized the police for pointing guns at the convicts while the hostages were in the line of fire and she had told news outlets that one of the captors tried to protect the hostages from being caught in the crossfire. She was also critical of prime minister Olof Palme, as she had negotiated with the captors for freedom, but the prime minister told her that she would have to content herself to die at her post rather than give in to the captors’ demands.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
