Stockholm Syndrome
Stockholm syndrome is named after the work carried out by a Swedish criminologist Nils Bejerot in the late 1970s, in which he summarized the behaviors resulting from a group of people, when two robbers in a Stockholm bank held and they lived with the victims for six days.
Once rescued, some captives were friendly, empathetic to their captors, and in some cases benevolent to the point of financing their defense expenses. Without a doubt, a clear example of what the stockholm syndrome is.
Victims who identify with their aggressors
On some occasions, victims unconsciously identify with their aggressors, become emotionally involved with the situation, assuming a certain degree of responsibility for the attack received.
Sometimes, there is even an intrinsic gratitude in some victims, for having emerged unscathed and alive from that episode. We could say that Stockholm syndrome is a defense mechanism, a reaction that our body manifests, before an uncontrollable situation that happened.
But, we cannot ignore that in order to develop Stockholm syndrome, the victim must have felt cared for at some point, without evidence of having suffered violent or serious abuse. That is to say, most likely, it is that he has been under the yoke of a great manipulator.
Many times, we associate the stockholm syndrome only with those people who have been abducted. However, there are other scenarios much better known, unfortunately, today in which this happens.
Let’s think of all those people who are victims of mistreatment by their partners. But they are still there, defending the relationship and not putting that much-needed complaint first. In a way, they feel guilty, but also grateful to be alive or well. Well, the mistreatment of their partners goes hand in hand with manipulation.
The stockholm syndrome and pathological relationships
By observing the victim, we can assess whether they feel identified with their aggressor, both in their way of thinking and in their behavior, and if that gratitude towards their aggressors persists for a long period of time.
At present, some professionals consider that this syndrome should not be pigeonholed exclusively to subjects who have suffered kidnappings. They consider that in cases of women who are victims of violence by their partner, partner, father, etc., a defense of the same towards their aggressors can also be observed, as mentioned above.
The mistreatment is justified, this union is not avoided and the conflict is not resolved. You cannot escape from that terrible jail. A prison from which they have the key to escape whenever they want. It is a situation of powerlessness for the environment.
These pathological relationships occur due to a mental disorder when accepting what is harmful and dangerous, and faced with an imbalance between the combination of good and bad treatment, they choose to exclusively value the beneficial or positive of that union.
Therapeutic treatment, psychoanalysis, and drugs administered by specialists, are the alternatives to escape from this dependence, and achieve freedom. Each case is unique, but with discipline and pertinent therapy, it has a high probability of being resolved.
Is there someone close to you who has suffered from stockholm syndrome? Have you experienced it in your own flesh?
