You’re unfair to Bigombe, Nagenda
Mar 09, 2005
SIR– In John Nagenda’s <i>One Man’s Week</i>, February 26, the wordsmith did not fail to deliver in his usual piqant style.
SIR– In John Nagenda’s One Man’s Week, February 26, the wordsmith did not fail to deliver in his usual piqant style.
It’s true that Mr Nagenda’s commentaries are usually controversial and provocative. His claim that Betty Bigombe may be suffering from “the Mysterious Stockholme Syndrome†may have been made tongue in cheek but was sadly out of the true context in which this transference occurs.
The elements of the Stockholm Syndrome (SS), first described in the early 1970’s in relation to captives of robbers, who attempted to rob a bank in Kreditbanken, in Stockholm in 1973, are in summary, a captor threatening their victim with loss of life, a victim under immense physical and mental duress resulting from such a threat, and the victim tending to protect their tormentor in the hope that if their captor is unharmed, they will be safe.
Victims also have the (delusional) belief that having been threatened by their captor, and being in the situation where they are at their captor’s mercy, they should be grateful to them that they are still alive at all!
The Diagnosis of SS in Bigombe is at best a weak differential and unlikely to sway any psychotherapist. To Bigombe, you don't have to hit the psychotherapist’s couch for this one.
Dr Dennis Otto
St. Mary’s Hospital, Lacor
It’s true that Mr Nagenda’s commentaries are usually controversial and provocative. His claim that Betty Bigombe may be suffering from “the Mysterious Stockholme Syndrome†may have been made tongue in cheek but was sadly out of the true context in which this transference occurs.
The elements of the Stockholm Syndrome (SS), first described in the early 1970’s in relation to captives of robbers, who attempted to rob a bank in Kreditbanken, in Stockholm in 1973, are in summary, a captor threatening their victim with loss of life, a victim under immense physical and mental duress resulting from such a threat, and the victim tending to protect their tormentor in the hope that if their captor is unharmed, they will be safe.
Victims also have the (delusional) belief that having been threatened by their captor, and being in the situation where they are at their captor’s mercy, they should be grateful to them that they are still alive at all!
The Diagnosis of SS in Bigombe is at best a weak differential and unlikely to sway any psychotherapist. To Bigombe, you don't have to hit the psychotherapist’s couch for this one.
Dr Dennis Otto
St. Mary’s Hospital, Lacor