The bizarre siege behind Stockholm Syndrome | Hacker News Reader

The bizarre siege behind Stockholm Syndrome

bbc.com

67 pointspseudolus47 comments

A key detail that sometimes gets lost in the complexity of the story is that Clark Olofsson, one of the two criminals that the hostages supposedly formed an irrational bond with, was in jail at the start of the siege and was sent into the situation by police with a promise of a reduction in his sentence if he helped the hostages survive. If the hostages were perceptive about his motives, and detected a genuine fear of harm coming to them, that could have influenced their feelings towards him.

I think there's likely a lot of truth in the idea of Stockholm Syndrome, but this story seems too complicated to be convincing evidence for it.

The BBC article avoids taking sides where it shouldn't. Stockholm Syndrome is bullshit, not merely "controversial".

https://www.stadafa.com/2020/12/stockholm-syndrome-discredit...

"The psychiatrist who invented it, Nils Bejerot, never spoke to the woman he based it on, never bothered to ask her why she trusted her captors more than the authorities. More to the point, during the Swedish bank heist that inspired the syndrome, Bejerot was the psychiatrist leading the police response. He was the authority that Kristin Enmark – the first woman diagnosed with Stockholm syndrome – distrusted."

"On the radio, Enmark criticized the police, and singled out Bejerot. In response, and without once speaking to her, Bejerot dismissed her comments as the product of a syndrome he made up: ‘Norrmalmstorg syndrome’ (later renamed Stockholm syndrome). The fear Enmark felt towards the police was irrational, Bejerot explained, caused by the emotional or sexual attachment she had with her captors. Bejerot’s snap diagnosis suited the Swedish media; they were suspicious of Enmark, who ‘did not appear as traumatized as she ought to be.’ "

The origins of Stockholm Syndrome and its initial framing may be debated, its continued use in psychology suggests that it provides a useful framework for understanding certain psychological responses

The one where people distrust the authorities because they are handling a situation extremely poorly ?

That's a very optimistic and charitable interpretation.

It also might be that "its continued use in psychology suggests" that false information taught to university students can result in years of incorrect orthodoxy before the error is corrected.

> The origins of Stockholm Syndrome and its initial framing may be debated

It's not really a matter of debate. We know the origins. We know it is junk science. We know this about multiple sciences and scientific theories, that's how science works: someone gets an idea, they theorize about it, test their theories, and our shared understanding grows.

This is not that. This is an ass-pulled theory that's been debunked at it's point of origin. This doesn't deserve rebuttal, it deserves mockery and derision.

Doesn't the idea that one can debunk a theory at its point of origin contradict your earlier statements about how science works? You could perhaps argue that it has neither be proven nor disproven, due to lack of data and experimentation.

Also, the FBI seems to believe it exists, based on 1200 hostage incident reports[0]:

> According to the FBI’s Hostage/Barricade System (HOBAS), a national database that contains data from over 1,200 reported federal, state, and local hostage/barricade incidents, 92 percent of the victims of such incidents reportedly showed no aspect of the Stockholm Syndrome. When victims who only showed negative feelings toward law enforcement (usually due to frustration with the pace of negotiations) are included, the percentage rises to 95 percent. In short, this database provides empirical support that the Stockholm Syndrome remains a rare occurrence.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20040627010420/http://www.au.af....

A theory (as in a proper, scientific theory) must be testable, and then it must actually be tested to verify it.

Neither of these are true of Stockholm Syndrome. It's no better than the many "theories" of hair tonic merchants.

You're also grossly abusing the concept of "statistics" in your statement "this database provides empirical support that the Stockholm Syndrome remains a rare occurrence."

Why do you believe that the Stockholm Syndrome is not testable?

Because that would require building a testing protocol (what specific outcomes are predicted, how it would be measured, and what constitutes success/failure), and it must pass peer review.

Since this has not happened, Stockhom Syndrome is not considered testable (because no such scientific tests have been defined). If one were to successfully design a testing protocol for it, it would then be considered testable. For now, it's not even a theory.

I'm curious why you feel so confident about that. From what I can tell, it's regarded as real by the FBI, American Psychiatric Association, etc. I also don't see why it wouldn't be testable... do you not see interviewing hostage victims as a legitimate testing protocol? Not to mention the many high profile cases where victims clearly demonstrated symptoms.

The scientific process requires you to make specific, measurable predictions, and then conduct unbiased experiments that test for those measured predictions in a way that can be replicated by other people.

This is a well-established process that Stockholm Syndrome has yet to undergo (much like the polygraph - also a favorite of the FBI). The fact that it's "regarded as real" is immaterial - in fact, that's PRECISELY WHY the scientific process exists. It used to be "regarded as real" that homosexuality is a mental disorder - by both the BOI/FBI and the psychiatric community. Everyone just somehow "knew" it to be true...

> Not to mention the many high profile cases where victims clearly demonstrated symptoms.

Such as?

If this is indeed a real thing, then there should be so many recorded instances by now that there's enough data to perform an actual study and publish a paper demonstrating the effcet (gaining the author some serious recognition in the scientific community).

The FBI is the last place i would look for evidence of techniques working. They still use polygraphs, drug dogs, etc. the whole justice system is awash in pseudoscience

Fingerprinting, fire foresenics, hair analysis, every kind of sniffing dog (except corpse/person). If you want to have a good time sometime, look up all the various branches of criminal "science" and find out how many have any substantial backing in real science, then go watch an episode of CSI or Forensic Files and count how much of what's discussed with such grandiosity is utter bullshit.

Is there any standard too low for Psychology? Would you balk at someone telling you that they know something is untrue but still teach it because it's politically convenient? How about if it just makes them money? Why does Psychology get to call itself a science when the field seems to refuse to stop teaching known falsehoods, to say nothing of actually using the Scientific Method?

The quacks rode the boomer wave all the way to shore..

That's known as the "bandwagon fallacy": People in authority believe it, so it must be true.

Homosexuality used to be a psychological disorder, at times treated by castration.

Hysteria used to be a diagnosable illness in women for which they'd spend years in an institution.

The psychological establishment has a very dark and nasty history, replete with "theories" that they all believed were justified - a practice that continues to this day.

Agreed on your larger point, but I think one of the reasons the "syndrome" has had such staying power in our culture is that it's describing a very real thing people see in the world (abusive relationships, bad working conditions, etc.)

... but one wonders how often abusive relationships are simply better than available alternatives.

eg.?

Being homeless is the immediate alternative to many abusive situations.

Thats the more severe possibility, and I don't claim its not realistic. But from what I've seen so far, its more the fear of unknown and uncertainty.

Fear of unknown can be very powerful, horror movies build mainly on this. Also cumulative hurt of staying, while being higher overall, is much less than single huge immediate dose of hurt received by running away, at least they project it this way.

Put kids into the mix, and we have what we have.

If you were treated like shit when raised, you will believe being treated like shit later in life is something you need to accept.

Or, the other way round: If you were raised to develop healthy boundaries, you will not end up in an abuse relationship later on in life.

Sure, but there are also plenty of abusive situations where a friend or family member would be more than willing to take the abused person in (and the abused person knows this) and they still don't leave.

Which seems to be the basis for the Stockholm syndrome to happen.

The abusive relationship has to appear better than the available alternatives. There may be a few instances where it is true, but in many cases, it isn't.

They often appear better to the victim (due to sunk costs, stockholm or whatever you want to call it, etc.). I don't think it's very common that they are better

Except it's not. Abusive relationships begin based on trust, and then go bad as the abuser sets into their patterns. They're hard to break because they started off so (seemingly) well, and the victim starts second-guessing that maybe it was they who triggered this bad behavior (thus, they stay to try to fix it). It's also harder to break off something that you've invested so much into already.

That's not at all the same thing as someone who starts off with a violent or threatening act.

Above all, people often stay in abusive relationships because of what they think is a rational analysis of the trade-offs. There are concerns about financial stability, uprooting your children's lives, losing friends, etc.

In reality, the calculation tends to underestimate the risk of staying and overestimate the risk of leaving. But this is not unique to the victims of domestic abuse. It's the same reason people stick to bad jobs, depressing but non-abusive relationships, etc.

From the end of the article:

> Speaking on the BBC's Sideways podcast in 2021, Kristen had a blunt assessment of Stockholm Syndrome. "It's bullshit, if you can say that on the BBC. It's a way of blaming the victim. I did what I could to survive."

And that podcast episode is very good.

Nils Bejerot is also the reason why Sweden has some of the highest drug related deaths in Europe. This charlatan made Sweden embrace the war on drugs like no other country in the western world, they still have some of the most backwards drug related policies. He was well connected to the social democratic politburo which is probably why his ideas got so embraced.

Sweden's stock of heroinists is among the oldest in Europe. The high death rate us due to (for drug abusers) natural causes.

Where are you getting this from?

F.e. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1075278/average-age-of-d...

Netflix made tv series about Clark Olofsson called "Clark"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDuKaZkWClA

Great example of how not to name a show. I'd have at least a few other associations before clicking on it to see what it was actually about. Clark Kent? Clark and Gable?

Wouldn't something that describes who Olofsson is be a better title? Or am I just being picky for no reason?

I believe it's a cultural difference. It was a Swedish production and he's a lot more famous there. I can't say whether he'd be the first thing to come to mind when a Swedish person heard the name, but he'd be a lot higher on the list than in the US.

I was gonna go with "Lewis and Clark" for my immediate association

The guy is still alive and could perhaps sue for libel if they used his full name. An earlier Swedish movie about Olof Palme was probably libelous, but got away with it since his name was never used.

Sweden must have an exceptionally strange libel standard then, given that the series is explicitly about him: "This is the unbelievable story of Clark Olofsson, the controversial criminal who inspired the term "Stockholm syndrome." Based on his truths and lies.".

Sweden, is .. a strange country. Yes, its liberal. But at the same time. Its part of the old world, as in the ancient world, that was before the WorldWars. It had eugenics until the 2000s.

What do you have in mind with “… until the 2000s”?

According to Wikipedia:

“ Compulsory sterilisation in Sweden were sterilisations which were carried out in Sweden, without a valid consent of the subject, during the years 1906–1975 on eugenic, medical and social grounds.”

So the main sterilization program ended 1975. However:

“Between 1972 and 2013, sterilisation was also a condition for gender reassignment surgery.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_...

I honestly wouldn't have assumed any of those. "Clarks" is a very famous shoe brand in the UK, and here, Clark is a surname. Ironically, Clark Gable's real name was "William Clark Gable" apparently. So, Clark was actually more likely a surname.

I guess Clark Olofsson was also named after Clark Gable, as Clark is not a particularly Swedish name either.

The governance of affairs on this planet seems to me like a legitimate instance of this phenomenon... kind of like a wife who defends her husband even though he abuses her. It is indeed true that in almost all such cases there is an even more abusive husband out there, but that does not make the other abusive husbands good in an absolute sense.

It is funny and interesting how differently people interpret abstract matters like this depending on what the object level topic is.

Funny bit of trivia, Patty Hearst went on to be in several of John Waters' movies.

"Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages, it is the rule." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Nice! In case anyone else is curious, the original German seems to be: Der Irrsinn ist bei Einzelnen etwas Seltenes,- aber bei Gruppen, Parteien, Völkern, Zeiten die Regel.

Initial speaker 100% sounds like Coach Steve from the Netflix show Big Mouth.

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