Stockholm Syndrome

Not a recognised diagnosis, and the evidential basis is thin. The hostages of the 1973 Norrmalmstorg robbery have themselves rejected the framing, saying their fear was of the police response.

In practice

• A jury is told that a witness's continued contact with the accused shows a recognised syndrome, and the term is doing work no diagnosis supports.
• An employee who defends a difficult manager is described as captured, where the simpler account is that they weighed the alternatives and stayed.

Possible explanations

One explanation is appeasement, since cooperating with a captor is a survival strategy and warmth is a plausible by-product. Another is that the hostage fears the rescue as much as the captor, which is what the Norrmalmstorg hostages themselves described.

In its favour

Traumatic bonding is documented in other settings, including abusive relationships, where dependence and intermittent kindness produce attachment.

Against it

It is not a diagnosis, has no agreed criteria and rests on a handful of cases, and critics argue it has been used to discredit victims' own accounts of what frightened them.

Standing

Not a recognised diagnosis; the evidential basis is thin and the original framing has been criticised by the hostages themselves.

Further reading

Wikipedia

Subject

Psychology & Behavior

Essay

Theories of the mind, from the lab to the bookshop