'Receiving the enemy as a father': Psychological mysteries of Stockholm Syndrome

In 1973, in Sweden, two robbers appeared. One was named Jan-Erik Olsson, and the other was Clark Olofsson.

Olsson is a small thug, often going in and out of prisons. At Kalmar prison, he meets evil criminal Clark Olofsson, Sweden's first notorious gangster, specializing in bank robberies and drug dealers. The ferocious cats met, Olsson and Olofsson became friends.

Olsson greatly admires Olofsson because of his criminal past. So, after Olofsson was arrested in a follow-up case, Olsson set up a rescue plan.

He found a way to smuggle explosives into the prison, and sat in the car outside, waiting for Olofsson to detonate the explosives. And then 'boom'… nothing happened.

Olofsson failed to detonate the potion. It was reported that the amount of explosives was not enough and there was only a hole in the wall too small for Olofsson to get out. Either way, the rescue attempt failed, and the prison stepped up measures to keep Olofsson in custody.

Olsson refused to surrender. He thought of robbing banks, taking hostages in exchange for 'idol' Olofsson.

On August 23, 1973, Olsson stormed into Kreditbanken with a submachine gun on Norrmalmstorg square in Stockholm, shouting 'robbery!!!'. The people there fled in chaos.

Swedish special police officers surrounded the scene shortly after. Olsson opened fire indiscriminately, injuring one police officer. Another officer was made to sit on a chair and sing a song.

Olsson eventually took four bankers hostage, three women and one man. He demanded Olofsson's immediate release and demanded an additional 3 million Swedish krona with two guns, a bulletproof vest and a car, or else he would kill the hostages.

What is the result? Olofsson was actually released, and taken to the bank building.

Two bandits reunite. They fenced off the main cellar to hold hostages and confront the police.

The robbers placed explosives next to the hostages, and threatened to blow them to death if they dared to flee. But at the same time feeding the hostages and 'confiding' with them.

The Swedish authorities tried to buy time. On August 26, police drilled a hole into the main cellar from the apartment above and captured a photo of the hostages with Olofsson. Olofsson shot into the hole, injuring a police officer in the hand and face.

On August 28, after 6 days of struggle, the police successfully raided, rescued the hostages and captured two robbers alive. Justice is served, everyone thinks it's a good thing.

But what happened next left the public incomprehensible. After the hostages were freed, they not only did not denounce Olsson and Olofsson but also praised the robbers in front of the media and the court. They thanked them for not killing but treating them well.

As for the police, the hostages expressed distrust, even showing obvious hostility, thinking that the policemen who came to save them wanted to harm them, while the bandits were protecting them. Try to escape the bullets of the police. The fact that the authorities collected evidence from the victim, they also resolutely did not cooperate, causing difficulties for the investigation.

It's not over yet. A hostage immediately after being rescued hastily set up a fund to raise money around the world to hire famous lawyers to defend the two robbers. Female hostage Kristin Enmark even entered the prison to be engaged to a robber. The Enmark and Olofsson family later became friends.

Swedes could not understand what was happening; Because this event was originally broadcast live locally, everyone could follow the progress from start to finish. Congress also did not understand and asked to conduct research. Police reached out to Mr. Nils Bejerot, a renowned criminal psychologist and psychiatrist, to assist in analyzing the victim's reaction to the robbery, and their condition when taken hostage.

As the concept of 'brainwashing' was not new then, Mr Bejerot described the hostages' reaction as a result of being 'brainwashed' by their captors, calling it the Syndrome. Norrmalmstorg, then known outside of Sweden as Stockholm Syndrome.

This syndrome manifests itself in the 1973 bank robbery, which can be briefly summarized as: When life is threatened, the strong desire to live has led the hostages to support their captors, which react This mentality continues after the threat ends.

To create Stockholm syndrome, four conditions must be met.

1. First: Make the victim really feel threatened, make them believe that these kidnappers will kill them at any time without hesitation.
2. Second: The victim is completely in despair, feeling that there is no way out.
3. Third: The perpetrator must sometimes give the victim a small favor, making the victim believe that the kidnapper is their savior.
4. Fourth: The victim is isolated from the news, completely isolated from the outside, only knowing the information the abuser wants them to know. What the perpetrator doesn't want them to know is blocked.

Okay. So what are the specific manifestations of Stockholm Syndrome at the onset?

Very simple. Victims often hold a grudge against the person who saved them, and thank virtue for the perpetrator who harmed them, which is the mentality of 'receiving the enemy as a father'. They completely lost the ability to judge right and wrong, and also lost the desire to protect their own interests.

It's not hard to see that this Stockholm Syndrome doesn't just happen in kidnappings. It is very common in life, in historical stories and in current society.

We can take a concrete and still happening example right now here in Shanghai, China, as this city of 26 million people is going through its darkest days due to its zero-COVID policy. regime rulers.

The blockade order has caused people to suffer a lot due to severe food shortages, cross-infection, forced admission to covid-concentration camps, elderly patients on dialysis who cannot find services. medical care… even some suicides in the blockade have been recorded… But for many Chinese people, when these difficulties are temporarily over, or when a small favor is bestowed on them. , a possible bit of food that they deserved on their own, they were moved to tears in gratitude for the authorities.

The Epoch Times once analyzed in depth the striking similarities between the CCP's unusually successful brainwashing of the Chinese people and the mechanism that produced the Stockholm syndrome.

'Female writer Dinh Linh with her long novel 'The sun shines on the Tang Can River' once made a splash on Chinese literature after 1949. This writer joined the CCP in 1932 and was classified as a member of the Chinese literary community. 'KMT reactionaries' and imprisoned in Nanjing for three years, exiled and imprisoned by the 'party' to whom she was absolutely loyal for twenty years, during which time was tortured to death. disability. Although 'the party doesn't love her, she still loves the party', after the 'reaction', in the re-publishing of the book 'The sun shines on the Tang Can River', she said that she was still 'like a soldier calling her'. Chairman Mao rushed to the battlefield'. In 1984, two years before his death, Dinh Linh wrote to the Party Central Committee: 'For the past 52 years, I have always felt warm, honored, happy, led by the Party, making me more attached to the party, more understanding of the people, more confident in the inevitable victory of communism'. At that time, Dinh Linh was almost 80 years old, she had spent a quarter of her life in an iron cage of China, witnessing with her own eyes the injustice, cruelty, and carelessness of the CCP, but still "like a warrior" The doctor called Chairman Mao's name and rushed to the battlefield', it really made people feel cold and shiver' - Epoch Times.

Just meeting the above 4 factors, Stockholm syndrome will appear at different levels, because it is a human psychological response mechanism in despair when life is threatened and isolated. fool yourself.

How to get rid of Stockholm Syndrome?

In the popular Shawshank Prison, an IMDB highest-rated classic, there is a scene where a distraught Brooks holds a knife to Heywood's neck. Why? It's because Brooks is about to be released from prison! Brooks has been in prison for more than 40 years. He was so used to this prison, and having to return to the free world outside terrified him.

The old black man Red told Andy, a bank employee who was wrongly imprisoned, the main character of the film, a sentence like this: 'Once you go to prison, you will hate it at first, later, you will get used to it. , and as time goes by, you start to become dependent on it.'

But didn't Andy listen to those words? After 19 years in prison, Andy was still not used to it, and finally with his own will and intellect, he successfully escaped, returning to be a free person.