Stockholm Syndrome: A not-quite love story

Fed up with all the love stories you heard in the last days? Here comes a "not-quiet love story" for you:

by EneKiedis via DeviantArt

Love is complicated. While many may spend a sleepless night worrying about finding “the one”, getting together with “the wrong one” can be just as problematic. When taken to the extreme, developing romantic feelings for an inappropriate mate can be confusing, or even dangerous.
Stockholm syndrome is used to define a cluster of symptoms related to inappropriate feelings from a victim towards an aggressor. Within this framework, “positive” actions of the abuser such as withholding abuse are interpreted as signs of love and affection, and the victim begins to develop empathy toward their captor. The name stems from a famous case in the 1970s, a hostage-taking at a Swedish bank in which the victims developed close bonds with their captors and eventually defended them in court [1,2]. Since then, many more cases have been documented, including many linked to forms of domestic and childhood abuse. Though rare, this syndrome has appeared to capture the public imagination [2].

SIMILAR BEHAVIOR MAY BE OBSERVED IN ANIMALS

 


More formally, Stockholm syndrome forms a part of  “Complex post-traumatic stress disorder” [2].Unfortunately, information about its neurobiological correlates is lacking. Evolutionary psychologists have written extensively about Stockholm syndrome, explaining it as an adaptive mechanism to avoid social strife. The story goes like this: a prehistoric woman is kidnapped from her clan, and must survive to protect her children. Making friends, or better yet, a sexual connection with the abductor provides a higher likelihood of survival, and this type of coping strategy is carried on to the next generation. It’s an imperfect story, yet similar types of submissive behavior may be observed in primates or other animals [3,4].

THERE IS STILL SO MUCH TO UNDERSTAND

 


While important for understanding the nature of Stockholm syndrome, these “just so” stories from the animal kingdom are still a long way away from explaining its neurobiological correlates. If nothing else, however, it shows us just how easily (and frighteningly) our feelings may adapt to life-threatening situations. Somewhere between “heart” and “mind”, there is still so much to discover and understand…


[1] Bejerot, “The six-day war in Stockholm”, The New Scientist, 1974
[2] Fitzpatrick, “Stockholm Syndrome”, Time, 2009
[3] Carson and Price, Aust NZ J Psychiatry, 2007
[4] Speckhard et al, Traumatology, 2005

by Constance Holman, PhD Student AG Schmitz
This article originally appeared June 2014 in Vol. 07 - Issue 2 "Neuroscience of Love".