Stuck with Stockholm

published May 8, 2008

On August 23, 1973, in Stockholm, Sweden, two men carrying machine guns stormed into a bank. One of them, a prison escapee named Jan-Erik Olsson, faced the bank employees and announced: “The party has just begun!”

For the next 131 hours, three women and one man were held hostage. They were strapped with dynamite and held in a bank vault until they were rescued.

So far, so good. Seems like just another crime story, right?

The shocking element is not due to be seen until much later, from the subsequent behavior displayed by the hostages after they were rescued. During their five-day ordeal, the hostages were threatened and abused. Naturally, they feared for their lives. But in media interviews after they had been freed, the hostages talked and acted as though they actually supported their captors and feared the law enforcement authorities who rescued them. They had begun to feel that the captors were actually protecting them from the police!

And, get this. One of the women later became engaged to one of the hostage takers. Another developed a legal defense fund to help the criminals defend their case.

The prominence of the case gave a name – the Stockholm Syndrome -- to a pattern of behavior that has long been observed in other psychological studies of other hostage, prisoner, or abusive situations, like abused children, battered/abused women, prisoners of war, cult members, incest victims, criminal hostage situations, concentration camp prisoners and controlling/ intimidating relationships.

That a victim would “bond” with his or her oppressor may be incomprehensible for the rest of us. After all, isn't a relationship that threatens or encroaches into one's integrity supposed to be met with resentment, anger, even retaliation? How stupid can these victims get if they cannot, at th very least, manage to nurse hatred towards their abusers?

But this response is a survival strategy, according to Joseph Carver, M.D., a clinical psychologist and a mental health professional in his article “Love and the Stockholm Syndrome: The Mystery of Loving an Abuser” as published in www.mental-health-matters.com. In fact, this mechanism had been so well recognized in the field of psychology at the time of the Stockholm Bank robbery that the negotiators no longer saw it as unusual, although the general public certainly did. The behavior was in fact played upon in crime situations as it improved hostages' chances for survival.

Of course, on the downside, victims who experienced the syndrome would most likely be uncooperative in criminally prosecuting their abusers.

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Family and romantic relationships are a common venue for the Stockholm Syndrome, and it goes without saying that such a response can occur anywhere in the world – from First World countries to impoverished regions, from high-rise condominiums to cute houses with whit picket fences to Austrian cellars one can only enter through a maze and after eight secret electronic doors.
The abuser may be a husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, father or mother, or any other role in which the abuser is in a position of control or authority.

In his paper, Dr. Carver cites several perceptions the victims hold of their abusers or their situations:
the presence of a perceived threat to one's physical or psychological survival and the belief that the abuser will carry out the threat;
the presence of a small kindness from the abuser to the victim;
isolation from perspectives other than those of the abuser; and
the perceived inability to escape the situation

I'd like to focus now on the second perception, that of a small kindness.

The victim jumps on any sign of hope that the situation may improve or that the abuser may change. Acts of small kindness provide that “sign.” For example, hostages or prisoners may think that their captors are doing them a favor just by letting them live or by sparing them from torture. If they are given food or water, or are allowed to use the bathroom, that's even a better gesture.

In relationships, profuse apologies, a birthday card or gift or a special treat (usually provided after a period or an instance of abuse) is interpreted by the victim as proof that the abuser is not altogether bad and may at some future time correct his or her behavior.
Further, the absence of abuse is taken to be an act of generosity. “Abusers are given positive credit for not abusing their partner, when the partner would have normally been subjected to verbal or physical abuse in a certain situation. An aggressive and jealous partner may normally become intimidating or abusive in certain social situations, as when an opposite-sex coworker waves in a crowd. After seeing the wave, the victim expects to be verbally battered and when it doesn't happen, that 'small kindness' is interpreted as a positive sign,” Carver says.

Another aspect of the small kindness perception is the revelation of what would appear to be the abuser's “soft side,” usually intimate details of how they themselves were mistreated, abused, neglected, or wronged in the past. The victim tries to justify the abuser's behavior by thinking that he used to be a victim as well, and that somehow the painful past experience mitigates the gravity of the intimidation he now practices. "I know he fractured my jaw and ribs…but he's troubled. He had a rough childhood!" It's funny, but it could be true.

In fact, though, soft-side stories are abusers' way of evading or denying responsibility for their actions. Of course, their victims are blind to that. It's actually a stroke of genius. Sympathy then begins to develop – curiously, from the abused to the abuser – but as everybody external to the relationship knows and expects, sympathy produces no change whatsoever in the behavior and in fact prolongs the time a victim is subjected to abuse.

Indeed, the length of time a victim is exposed to the abuser determines the severity of the syndrome. In turn, the severity is a major factor in the possibility of extricating oneself from a destructive relationship. Imagine what could happen to a housewife who has been living in the same house, breathing the same air and operating in the same mentality (i.e., he has the power; I don't) for years, even decades.

Psychological dynamics are critical for those engaged in helping abuse victims rise above their past and start rebuilding their lives. Counselors, law enforcers, lawyers – even friends and family members – must take great pains to understand, first and foremost, that the victim's thinking, confidence and self-esteem are not in normal levels so that “natural” reactions, such as resisting the abuse, fighting back or, in extreme situations, bringing their partners to jail now become unthinkable.

Helping them out is often a long and painstaking process. At some point, victims may even backtrack and thus frustrate all those who genuinely have their well being in mind. It is often said that you can only help somebody who wants to help herself. But what if that somebody is not even aware that help is possible? Do you just let go? Of course you don't.