Stockholm syndrome identifies a group of psychological symptoms that occur in a few persons in a captive or perhaps hostage situation. It has received considerable mass media publicity in recent times because it have been used to make clear the behavior of such recognized kidnapping subjects as Patty Hearst (1974) and At the Smart (2002). The term takes a name from a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, that kicks off in august 1973. The robber required four employees of the financial institution (three ladies and one man) into the vault with him and held them slave shackled for 131 hours.
After the workers were finally released, that they appeared to have formed a paradoxical psychological bond with their captor; that they told reporters that they observed the police as their enemy as opposed to the bank robber, and that they experienced positive feelings toward the criminal. The syndrome was first named by simply Nils Bejerot (1921″1988), a medical professor who specializing in addiction exploration and dished up as a psychiatric consultant to the Swedish police during the standoff at the financial institution.
Stockholm syndrome is additionally known as Survival Identification Affliction.
DescriptionStockholm problem is considered a complex reaction to a daunting situation, and experts usually do not agree completely on most of its feature features or perhaps on the factors that make some people more vulnerable than other folks to growing it. A single reason for the disagreement is that it would be unethical to test ideas about the syndrome by simply experimenting in human beings. The data for understanding the syndrome happen to be derived from real hostage conditions since 1973 that change considerably from another with regards to location, number of individuals involved, and time frame.
An additional source of disagreement concerns the extent to which the symptoms can be used to make clear other famous phenomena or more commonplace types of damaging relationships. Many researchers assume that Stockholm syndrome helps to explain certain actions of survivors of Ww ii concentration camps; members of religious cults; battered wives; incest survivors; and physically or emotionally abused children as well as persons used hostage simply by criminals or perhaps terrorists. Most experts, yet , agree that Stockholm affliction has three central features:
¢The hostages have adverse feelings regarding the police or other government bodies. The hostages have confident feelings toward their captor(s). ¢The captors develop confident feelings toward the hostages. Causes & symptoms Stockholm syndrome does not affect all hostages (or persons in comparable situations); in fact , analysis Bureau of Investigation (FBI) study of over twelve hundred hostage-taking incidents found that 92% with the hostages did not develop Stockholm syndrome. FBI researchers then simply interviewed air travel attendants who was simply taken hostage during airline hijackings, and concluded that 3 factors are necessary for the syndrome to produce: ¢The catastrophe situation takes several days or much longer. The hostage takers stay in contact with the hostages; that may be, the hostages are not put into a separate area. ¢The slave shackled takers demonstrate some kindness toward the hostages or at least refrain from damaging them. Hostages abused by captors typically feel anger toward these people and do not usually develop the syndrome. In addition , people who often feel reliant in other nerve-racking life circumstances or are willing to do anything to be able to survive appear to be more susceptible to developing Stockholm syndrome if they are taken slave shackled.
People with Stockholm syndrome survey the same symptoms as all those diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): sleep problems, nightmares, general irritability, problems concentrating, becoming easily stunned, feelings of unreality or perhaps confusion, failure to enjoy recently pleasurable experience, increased mistrust of others, and flashbacks. Prognosis Stockholm syndrome is a detailed term for a pattern of coping with a traumatic situation rather than a analysis category. Many psychiatrists will use the analysis criteria pertaining to acute pressure disorder or perhaps posttraumatic pressure disorder once evaluating a person with Stockholm syndrome.
Treatment Remedying of Stockholm problem is the same as pertaining to PTSD, in most cases a combination of medicines for short-term sleep disturbances and psychiatric therapy for the longer-term symptoms. Key terms Dealing ” In psychology, a term that refers to someone’s patterns of response to anxiety. Some habits of coping may reduce a person’s likelihood of developing Stockholm syndrome within a hostage condition. Flashback ” The re-emergence of a traumatic memory like a vivid memory space of seems, images, and sensations linked to the trauma.
The individual having the flashback typically feels as if they may be reliving the event. Flashbacks were first defined by doctors treating fight veterans of World Warfare I (1914″1918). Identification with an attentatmand ” In psychology, a great unconscious method in which a person adopts the angle or patterns patterns of the captor or perhaps abuser. A few researchers contemplate it a partial justification of Stockholm syndrome. Regression ” In psychology, an excellent return to before, usually idiotic or infantile, patterns of thought or perhaps behavior. Syndrome ” A couple of symptoms that occur jointly.
Prognosis The prognosis pertaining to recovery from Stockholm symptoms is generally very good, but the treatment time needed is determined by several parameters. These include the nature of the slave shackled situation; the length of time the problems lasted, as well as the individual person’s general coping style and previous experience(s) of trauma. Prevention Prevention of Stockholm syndrome at the standard of the larger society includes further more development of turmoil intervention expertise on the part of police force as well as strategies to prevent kidnapping or hostage-taking incidents to start with.
Prevention on the individual level is difficult as of early 2000s mainly because researchers have not been able to identify all the elements that may place some individuals at better risk than others; in addition , they differ on the specific psychological systems involved in Stockholm syndrome. A few regard the syndrome as a form of regression (return to childish habits of thought or action) while others make clear it when it comes to emotional paralysis (“frozen fright) or identification with the aggressor.
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