Stockholm Syndrome
Yolinda Ratliff
PSY 303: Abnormal Psychology
Mario Garcia
November 12, 2012
Running Title: Syndrome Page 1
This essay will cover what Stockholm Syndrome is; tell who is most likely to
develop the disorder in reference to age, gender, social class, and ethnicity. This
essay will briefly summarize the risk factors associated with this disorder as in
psychological and/or social for Stockholm Syndrome. There will be a very brief attempt
at a comparison between Stockholm Syndrome and another disorder. This essay will
touch on treatments for the syndrome, success, or possible outcome of the treatments.
Stockholm Syndrome is the emotional bonding of hostages, prisoners, or abused
persons to their captor or abuser. “The condition got the name Stockholm Syndrome in
1973 when two machine gun carrying criminals entered a bank in Stockholm Sweden
holding four hostages strapped with dynamite ad held in the bank vault for 131 hours
until they were finally rescued on August 28, 1973. After the rescue the hostages
Running Title: Syndrome Page 2
clearly supported their captors and actually feared law enforcement personnel who
rescued them. The hostages began to feel as though the captors were protecting
them from the police. One woman hostage later became engaged to one of the
prisoners, and another developed a legal defense fund to aid in the captors’ criminal
defense fees” (Carver, 2009).
Victims most likely to have Stockholm Syndrome are abused children, battered/
abused women, prisoners of war, incest victims, criminal hostages, concentration camp
prisoners, and controlled or intimidated victims in a relationship.
The symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome are positive feelings toward abuser/
controller, negative feelings towards friends, family, and anyone else trying to rescue
them, supporting an abusers reasons and behaviors, positive feelings towards victims
from the...