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I'm glad to learn more about the incident itself, but honestly the article does not give me a real reason to doubt that the phenomenon is real. Calling it a "di

I'm glad to learn more about the incident itself, but honestly the article does not give me a real reason to doubt that the phenomenon is real. Calling it a "diagnosis" is an attempt to medicalize it, which seems ridiculous as it is so incredibly situation-specific. And they in turn use this to attempt to undermine the "diagnosis" by a psychiatrist who never met with the patient; clearly meeting the patient and being able to interrogate them should be a significant part of a medical diagnosis, but this is not that, so it's an irrelevant criticism. The hostages were held at gunpoint under the threat of execution, and even after a successful rescue with no hostages injured, they sided with their captors against the authorities. Nothing here seems to contradict that or the phenomenon.

jjk166 2y ago
> they sided with their captors against the authorities. Because the authorities told them point blank they would rather the hostages die than the captors walk free. That's not some unique phenomenon, that's what any rational person would do. In the last paragraph, the article states a 2008 review basically found that stockholm syndrome is pop science, not a well defined and experimentally verified phenomenon. While it doesn't debunk every claim of Stockholm syndrome, it doesn't need to - clearly the burden is to show an actual case of Stockholm syndrome that stands up to scrutiny.
- andrewla 2y ago
  "Told them point blank" -- I mean, there was no private channel where police could confidentially tell the hostages about this. It's a negotiation point -- make the hostage-takers aware that they do not have unlimited immunity from consequences just because they have hostages. If the police had caused injury to come to a hostage, whether as collateral damage from police action or from the captors retaliating for police action, the afterwards I can see this being a cause of concern for the hostages. "Pop science" seems orthogonal to this concept -- it's like saying the concept of "jury of your peers" is pop science. It's a phenomenon that has some descriptive power, that's all. I mean, if you're going to say that in a hostage situation, it's okay for the police to deliberately endanger or harm the hostages because of Stockholm Syndrome, then that's clearly a misuse. But in hostage negotation and rescue, keeping in mind that the hostages may not be sympathetic or cooperative with the authorities seems like a really great thing to keep in mind.
  - jjk166 2y ago
    > Sensing that their likelihood of survival was getting slimmer by the hour, Enmark took matters into her own hands. She called the Swedish prime minister, Olof Palme, and begged him to let her and another hostage leave the bank with their captors. ‘I fully trust Clark and the robber,’ she told Palme. ‘I am not desperate. They haven’t done athing to us. On the contrary, they have been very nice. But you know, Olof, what I’m scared of is that the police will attack and cause us to die.’ Palme refused to let her leave, saying they could not give in to the demands of criminals. At the end of the conversation, Enmark says Palme said ‘Well, Kristin, you can’t get out of the bank. You will have to content yourself that you will have died at your post.’ If someone said this to you, would you be on their side? > "Pop science" seems orthogonal to this concept -- it's like saying the concept of "jury of your peers" is pop science. What? Pop science in this context means something that is widely believed to be rooted in scientific fact by the general public but actually isn't. > But in hostage negotiation and rescue, keeping in mind that the hostages may not be sympathetic or cooperative with the authorities seems like a really great thing to keep in mind. That's moving the goal posts dramatically. The whole point of this article is that stockholm syndrome does not have descriptive power because there are no scientific criteria to delineate what it is, when it's happening, or even if it's real. You can name things that don't exist, like dragons, but that does not mean people should be using dragons as an explanation for what they observe.
    - andrewla 2y ago
      If Clark had a gun to my head and Olof was refusing to give them what they wanted I would be pretty upset with Olof but way more upset with Clark. I might convince myself that Clark is super nice and only holding a gun to my head because of something something, but that's the essence of Stockholm syndrome in the end. I disagree that Stockholm syndrome is "widely believed to be rooted in scientific fact" -- I would say that "Stockholm Syndrome is widely believed to be a real phenomenon" and remove the pretension of "science" from the equation entirely. I don't feel that I'm moving the goalposts -- what, in your mind, is the "application" of the theory of Stockholm Syndrome other than what I've said here? Do you honestly believe that hostage negotiators are saying "if the hostages get in your way, shoot them because they have Stockholm Syndrome Which Is A Scientific Fact"?
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  But how come she ignored the fact that the root cause of all of that was the captors? I think that's the crazy part.
  - jjk166 2y ago
    The same way when someone T-bones your car you ignore the traffic engineer who designed a bad intersection.
- engineer_22 2y ago
  Quiet so. The article suggest the police and government offered no reassurances to the hostages, gambled with their lives, and to top it all off tear gassed them. I'd be less-than-thrilled, too.
  - lbwtaylor 2y ago
    But the hostage takers are the ones who created the hostage situation, not the police. They are the ones that caused the risk to the lives of the hostages - in fact that it the whole purpose of hostage taking, to use human lives as bargaining chips. I understand it is rational to want the police to cooperate with hostage takers if you are a hostage. But if the police successfully orchestrate a rescue, how is it rational to prefer the hostage takers to the police? One created the problem, one solved it?
    - pasabagi 2y ago
      The expectations for hostage-takers are pretty low, whereas the expectations for police are, if not sky-high, at least that they won't kill or injure you. Disappointment is often proportionate to anger. There's a second point which is, from a political perspective, police behaviour can be easily changed. Desperate criminal behaviour cannot.
      - mewpmewp2 2y ago
        These are all valid explanations or potentiators for what can cause the phenomena or syndrome, but it doesn't mean that the behavior is accurate to the truth. She chose to spoke in a way that condemned the police who tried to help you and she chose to spoke kindly to the hostage takers - you can frame everything in anyway you want. But reality is that police tried to do good for society while hostage takers were actively putting her in risk and trying to take from the society. To be empathetic to the police, they were also under tremendous stress, and had never seen a situation like that, Sweden had never seen this, and like the article said they hadn't trained for that. They tried to make the best of the bad situation they could, and after managing to have everyone lives intact, they were still condemned by someone who they tried to save, and that someone was speaking kindly of the people who caused the situation in the first place.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  Rape of the Sabine Women comes to mind as a possibly actual case of Stockholm syndrome. Not sure we can scrutinize it though
poisonborz 2y ago
I think this goes deeper. Independently of this origin accident, calling this card - which is scientifically unfounded - police can discredit hostages who, "from the inside", see their brutality or ignorance. Not every hostage situation is actually life threatening.
- andrewla 2y ago
  > Not every hostage situation is actually life threatening Really? I would say that every hostage situation is tautologically life threatening -- that's what makes it a hostage situation.
deleted 2y ago
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scotty79 2y ago
> article does not give me a real reason to doubt that the phenomenon is real I think framing it as something pathological is what's doubtful. It's perfectly human reaction to try to form bonds in the environment you found yourself in with whoever is there to increase your chances of survival. And to feel distrustful of wannabe soldiers pointing guns in your general direction with the goal of bringing back business as usual as promptly as feasible (from PR standpoint) rather than saving your life.

jjk166 2y ago

> they sided with their captors against the authorities. Because the authorities told them point blank they would rather the hostages die than the captors walk free. That's not some unique phenomenon, that's what any rational person would do. In the last paragraph, the article states a 2008 review basically found that stockholm syndrome is pop science, not a well defined and experimentally verified phenomenon. While it doesn't debunk every claim of Stockholm syndrome, it doesn't need to - clearly the burden is to show an actual case of Stockholm syndrome that stands up to scrutiny.

andrewla 2y ago
"Told them point blank" -- I mean, there was no private channel where police could confidentially tell the hostages about this. It's a negotiation point -- make the hostage-takers aware that they do not have unlimited immunity from consequences just because they have hostages. If the police had caused injury to come to a hostage, whether as collateral damage from police action or from the captors retaliating for police action, the afterwards I can see this being a cause of concern for the hostages. "Pop science" seems orthogonal to this concept -- it's like saying the concept of "jury of your peers" is pop science. It's a phenomenon that has some descriptive power, that's all. I mean, if you're going to say that in a hostage situation, it's okay for the police to deliberately endanger or harm the hostages because of Stockholm Syndrome, then that's clearly a misuse. But in hostage negotation and rescue, keeping in mind that the hostages may not be sympathetic or cooperative with the authorities seems like a really great thing to keep in mind.
- jjk166 2y ago
  > Sensing that their likelihood of survival was getting slimmer by the hour, Enmark took matters into her own hands. She called the Swedish prime minister, Olof Palme, and begged him to let her and another hostage leave the bank with their captors. ‘I fully trust Clark and the robber,’ she told Palme. ‘I am not desperate. They haven’t done athing to us. On the contrary, they have been very nice. But you know, Olof, what I’m scared of is that the police will attack and cause us to die.’ Palme refused to let her leave, saying they could not give in to the demands of criminals. At the end of the conversation, Enmark says Palme said ‘Well, Kristin, you can’t get out of the bank. You will have to content yourself that you will have died at your post.’ If someone said this to you, would you be on their side? > "Pop science" seems orthogonal to this concept -- it's like saying the concept of "jury of your peers" is pop science. What? Pop science in this context means something that is widely believed to be rooted in scientific fact by the general public but actually isn't. > But in hostage negotiation and rescue, keeping in mind that the hostages may not be sympathetic or cooperative with the authorities seems like a really great thing to keep in mind. That's moving the goal posts dramatically. The whole point of this article is that stockholm syndrome does not have descriptive power because there are no scientific criteria to delineate what it is, when it's happening, or even if it's real. You can name things that don't exist, like dragons, but that does not mean people should be using dragons as an explanation for what they observe.
  - andrewla 2y ago
    If Clark had a gun to my head and Olof was refusing to give them what they wanted I would be pretty upset with Olof but way more upset with Clark. I might convince myself that Clark is super nice and only holding a gun to my head because of something something, but that's the essence of Stockholm syndrome in the end. I disagree that Stockholm syndrome is "widely believed to be rooted in scientific fact" -- I would say that "Stockholm Syndrome is widely believed to be a real phenomenon" and remove the pretension of "science" from the equation entirely. I don't feel that I'm moving the goalposts -- what, in your mind, is the "application" of the theory of Stockholm Syndrome other than what I've said here? Do you honestly believe that hostage negotiators are saying "if the hostages get in your way, shoot them because they have Stockholm Syndrome Which Is A Scientific Fact"?
mewpmewp2 2y ago
But how come she ignored the fact that the root cause of all of that was the captors? I think that's the crazy part.
- jjk166 2y ago
  The same way when someone T-bones your car you ignore the traffic engineer who designed a bad intersection.
engineer_22 2y ago
Quiet so. The article suggest the police and government offered no reassurances to the hostages, gambled with their lives, and to top it all off tear gassed them. I'd be less-than-thrilled, too.
- lbwtaylor 2y ago
  But the hostage takers are the ones who created the hostage situation, not the police. They are the ones that caused the risk to the lives of the hostages - in fact that it the whole purpose of hostage taking, to use human lives as bargaining chips. I understand it is rational to want the police to cooperate with hostage takers if you are a hostage. But if the police successfully orchestrate a rescue, how is it rational to prefer the hostage takers to the police? One created the problem, one solved it?
  - pasabagi 2y ago
    The expectations for hostage-takers are pretty low, whereas the expectations for police are, if not sky-high, at least that they won't kill or injure you. Disappointment is often proportionate to anger. There's a second point which is, from a political perspective, police behaviour can be easily changed. Desperate criminal behaviour cannot.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      These are all valid explanations or potentiators for what can cause the phenomena or syndrome, but it doesn't mean that the behavior is accurate to the truth. She chose to spoke in a way that condemned the police who tried to help you and she chose to spoke kindly to the hostage takers - you can frame everything in anyway you want. But reality is that police tried to do good for society while hostage takers were actively putting her in risk and trying to take from the society. To be empathetic to the police, they were also under tremendous stress, and had never seen a situation like that, Sweden had never seen this, and like the article said they hadn't trained for that. They tried to make the best of the bad situation they could, and after managing to have everyone lives intact, they were still condemned by someone who they tried to save, and that someone was speaking kindly of the people who caused the situation in the first place.
readthenotes1 2y ago
Rape of the Sabine Women comes to mind as a possibly actual case of Stockholm syndrome. Not sure we can scrutinize it though

poisonborz 2y ago

I think this goes deeper. Independently of this origin accident, calling this card - which is scientifically unfounded - police can discredit hostages who, "from the inside", see their brutality or ignorance. Not every hostage situation is actually life threatening.

andrewla 2y ago
> Not every hostage situation is actually life threatening Really? I would say that every hostage situation is tautologically life threatening -- that's what makes it a hostage situation.

deleted 2y ago

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scotty79 2y ago

> article does not give me a real reason to doubt that the phenomenon is real I think framing it as something pathological is what's doubtful. It's perfectly human reaction to try to form bonds in the environment you found yourself in with whoever is there to increase your chances of survival. And to feel distrustful of wannabe soldiers pointing guns in your general direction with the goal of bringing back business as usual as promptly as feasible (from PR standpoint) rather than saving your life.