What Is Stockholm Syndrome?

Pedro_P

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Stockholm syndrome describes a condition where a captive victim befriends their captor.
Credit: Shutterstock
▼ Psychiatrists use the term Stockholm syndrome to describe a set of psychological characteristics first observed in people taken hostage during a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm. In that incident, two men held four bank employees hostage at gunpoint for six days inside a bank vault. When the standoff ended, the victims appeared to have developed positive feelings for their captors and even expressed compassion toward them.
Although it can be hard to understand how hostages would identify with, form emotional attachments to and even defend their captors after a terrifying, life-threatening ordeal, this unusual phenomenon has been known to occur on rare occasions. In addition to the syndrome's occurrence in hostage incidents, psychologists suggest that it may also affect cult members and victims of domestic abuse.
One of the most famous examples of a victim with Stockholm syndrome is Patty Hearst, a famous media heiress kidnapped in 1974. Hearst eventually helped her captors rob a bank and expressed support for their militant cause. Another high-profile example is Elizabeth Smart, a Utah teen who was kidnapped in 2002. Smart showed concern for the welfare of her abductors when police finally found her.
Although some experts disagree, most consider these cases to be clear examples of Stockholm syndrome.
Symptoms
Stockholm syndrome is a psychological concept used to explain certain reactions, but it's not a formal diagnosis, said Steven Norton, a forensic psychologist in Rochester, Minnesota. Stockholm syndrome isn't listed in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), a reference tool psychologists use to diagnose mental health and behavioral conditions (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, continue reading this article here: Source

soothsayer

with kidnappings on the rise in the world, there have been quite a few cases of the victims being diagnosed in this regard. They take years or perhaps never shed the empathy for their kidnappers