Stockholm Syndrome

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STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

• The Stockholm syndrome appears when an abused
  victim, develops a kind of respect and empathy
  towards their abuser. It was named after a bank
  robbery in Stockholm when a group of bank
  employees were held hostage and developed a
  strong sense of empathy towards their captors.
  When this traumatic event was over, they even
  defended their captors by not wanting to say
  anything that might endanger their captors
  freedom. This usually happens because the victim
  sees the smallest act of decent behavior as an
  extracted event which makes them see their
  captors as essentially good. This way they leave
  aside all the negative behavioral distinctions of
  their captors and focus on the positive ones.
  This syndrome is also called traumatic bonding
  or victim brainwashing.

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STOCKHOLM SYNDROME PAGE 2

• There are more and more cases like this appearing
  every day and the Kreditbanken employees are
  not the only ones who have suffered from this
  kind of psychological disorder. There are many
  examples that can be mentioned today such as the
  Patty Hearst case, or the case of Natascha
  Kampusch. In all these cases, and many more, the
  victims were held imprisoned for a longer period
  of time, and they became closely connected, in a
  way, with their abductors\captors. Some
  psychologists believe that the Stockholm syndrome
  is being largely overemphasized and
  over-analyzed, while others invest their full
  attention and focus into the analysis of the
  same.

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• The Stockholm syndrome also appears largely in
  cases of domestic violence, equally in women, men
  and children. It first starts to appear when the
  abused victim tries to rationalize the behavior
  of their abuser, to the point of defending them.
  It is important to realize that the abused
  victims do this in order to defend themselves.
  The acts of defending and understanding their
  abuser is not a voluntary act at all. Instead, it
  is a subconscious defense mechanism, and the
  victim only does it in order to survive the day
  without triggering an act of violence. The abused
  persons begin to avoid the members of their
  family and their friends, who are trying to help
  them, because they know that any contact with
  them will induce a violent outburst.

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• The victims begin to avoid any sort of behavior
  that might irritate the abuser. They completely
  adjust themselves to fulfill the wishes of the
  abuser, just to keep them calm and satisfied.
  There are many reasons why the victim sees it
  hard to just abandon the abuser, for one, the
  amount of time and effort they have invested into
  their relationship. This can be seen mostly in
  women who have been in a long-lasting abusive
  relationship. The important thing to do, when
  suspecting that one of your own is showing the
  symptoms of Stockholm syndrome, is to have an
  enormous amount of patience. These persons will
  not leave the abusers side all of a sudden, and
  it will take a certain amount of time to get
  through to them, and a much larger amount of time
  will be necessary for them to decide that they
  can no longer endure such behavior.