“They weren’t bad people. They let me eat, they let me sleep, and they gave me my life”— A hostage from Flight 847
“Stockholm Syndrome” first coined by Professor Nils Bejerot to explain the phenomenon of hostages bonding with their captors.
• Stockholm, Sweden 1973, two bank robbers held four people hostages for six days.
• Wide publicity: hostages came to care about their captors and perceive them as protecting them against the police.
Stockholm syndrome is the psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with, identify with, or sympathize with his or her captor.
Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes “strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.”
Cite this article:
R. Naganandini. Stockholm Syndrome. Int. J. Adv. Nur. Management 2(2): April- June, 2014; Page 109-111.