When captives get attached to captors

May 20, 2006

LIKE Evelyn, many former LRA captives suffer from what is called the Stockholm Syndrome — a condition experienced by people who are held hostage for a long period of time, during which they become attached to their captors.<br>

By Els De Temmerman

LIKE Evelyn, many former LRA captives suffer from what is called the Stockholm Syndrome — a condition experienced by people who are held hostage for a long period of time, during which they become attached to their captors.

The syndrome is named after the robbery of a bank in Stockholm in 1973, in which the robbers held four bank employees hostage for six days. While the robbery itself may not have been of world shocking news, the reaction of the hostages was. Even though they were not able to explain it, they displayed a strange association with their captors, identifying with them while fearing those who sought to end their captivity. Some later testified on behalf of their hostage takers and even raised money for their legal fees.

Famous cases of the Stockholm Syndrome include the American millionaire heiress, Patty Hearst, who, after having been kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in February 1974, helped rob a bank with the same group two months later; and Elisabeth Smart, a young American woman who spent many months living on the streets of Salt Lake City, Utah, with a mentally disturbed man who had kidnapped and sexually abused her at the age of 14.

Long-term psychological study of hostage situations has defined a clear set of symptoms for the Stockholm Syndrome. According to psychologist Fr. Charles T. Brusca in his book Psychological Responses to Terrorism, captives begin to identify with their captors at first as a survival mechanism, based on the often unconscious idea that the captor will not hurt them if they are co-operative and even supportive. “The captive seeks to win the favour of the captor in an almost childlike way,” writes Brusca.

“The victims’ need to survive is stronger than their impulse to hate the person who has created his dilemma” is confirmed by American psychologist, Dr. Thomas Strentz. “The victim comes to see the captor as a ‘good guy’, even a ‘saviour’.” This syndrome, according to Strentz, occurs in response to four specific conditions: when somebody threatens to kill you and is perceived as having the capability to do so, when you cannot escape and your life depends on that person, when you are isolated from outsiders and when your assaulter is showing some degree of kindness.

Moreover, the captive often realises that actions taken by his would-be rescuers are very likely to hurt him instead of obtaining his release. “Attempts at rescue may turn a presently tolerable situation into a lethal one,” analyses Brusca. “If the bullets of the authorities don’t get him, quite possibly those of the provoked captor will.”

Long-term captivity builds even stronger bonds to the captor, as he becomes known as a human being with his own problems and aspirations. “Particularly in political and ideological situations, longer captivity allows the captive to become familiar with the captor’s point of view and the history of his grievances,” writes Brusca. “He may come to believe that the captor’s position is just. Depending on his degree of identification with the captor, he may deny that the captor is at fault, holding that the would-be rescuers are really to blame for his situation.”

Other experts describe the Stockholm Syndrome as a bond of interdependence between captive and captor that develops when someone threatens your life but does not kill you. “The relief resulting from the removal of the threat of death generates intense feelings of gratitude and fear which combine to make the captive reluctant to display negative feelings towards the captor or terrorist,” is written in The Stockholm Syndrome: Not just for Hostages by Dee Graham, Edna Rawlings and Nelly Rimini. “Hostages are overwhelmingly grateful to their captors for giving them life. They focus on captor’s kindnesses, not his acts of brutality. (They) assume that the abuser is a good man. Denial of terror and anger, and the perception of their captors as omnipotent people, help to keep victims psychologically attached to their abusers.”

Psychologists emphasise that these symptoms occur under tremendous emotional and physical duress. The Stockholm Syndrome is considered a common survival strategy for victims of abuse which has been observed, not only in hostages, but also in battered spouses, abused children, prisoners of war and concentration camp survivors.
In the case of northern Uganda, one can wonder whether an entire society, held hostage for two decades by the LRA, is not suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome in one degree or another.

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