Stockholm Syndrome is a myth invented to discredit women victims of violence

[Nevilledog]

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1611171203783294977.html'm

I just read -- in the book SEE WHAT YOU MADE ME DO by Jess Hill -- about the incident in Stockholm for which Stockholm Syndrome is named, and I am royally pissed off on behalf of all women, buckle up.

So, in 1973 there was this bank robbery In Stockholm. Two gunmen took four bank clerks hostage. This doesn't happen much in Sweden, and the police response can most charitably be described as inept. They surrounded the bank and kept it under siege for six days.
The public was rapt. The police probably felt they couldn't back down.

They got off to a bang up start when they sent their psychiatrist Nils Bejerot and a teenaged kid THOUGHT was the gunman's younger brother into the bank to negotiate. The kid was not in fact the younger brother and he got shot. Nils got out, though. Put a pin in that.

One of the hostages was a woman named Kristin Enmark. She strategically got close to the gunman who seemed more sane and more stable, because she thought that getting his protection was the best bet for getting out of there.

Definitely she didn't want to leave their lives in the hands of the police. She tried to talk to our friend Nils on the phone -- he refused to talk to her.

From inside the bank she gave a radio interview: "[The police] are playing with our lives. And they don't even want to talk to me, who is the one who will die if anything happens."

She was terrified the police would storm the bank and she and the other hostages would be killed in the cross fire. She even called the Swedish Prime Minister, proposing a plan where she and another hostage would leave the besieged bank with the two robbers.

The prime minister refused to agree, saying they couldn't give in to the demands of criminals. He told her: "Well, Kristin, you can't get out of the bank. You will have to content yourself that you will have died at your post."

When the police finally did teargas the place, they captured the gunmen and paraded them up and down the street. Enmark had had quite enough of theatre that would have cast her as "dead hero" and now wanted her to be "dazed victim."

She refused to get into a stretcher, walking out of the bank instead. She was not visibly traumatized in what the public considered the appropriate way. And she was critical of the police, especially their psychiatrist, our boy Nils.

It was at that point that he made up a syndrome -- Norrmalmstorg Syndrome, for the part of the city, later Stockholm Syndrome -- on the spot, and diagnosed her with it without ever talking to her personally.

Jess Hill writes: Stockholm Syndrome is a myth invented to discredit women victims of violence, created by a psychiatrist with an obvious conflict of interest, whose first instinct was to silence the woman questioning his authority.

This piece more broadly recaps the book I am reading:

See What You Made Me Do: why it's time to focus on the perpetrator when tackling domestic violence

A new book scrutinises the social and psychological causes of domestic abuse, its terrifying consequences, particularly the impact on children, and the failure of our legal and social institutions to …

https://theconversation.com/see-what-you-made-me-do-why-its-time-to-focus-on-the-perpetrator-when-tackling-domestic-violence-119298

The worst of it is this made-up disorder has been used to discredit (mostly but not exclusively) women who live with protracted danger and make strategic decisions about how and whether to resist.

In domestic abuse (a term author Hill prefers to domestic violence), Stockholm Syndrome is a tool for keeping the focus on the victim (“why didn’t she leave”) and not the perpetrator, or the system.

Getting swamped so I am muting this. TL;DR: Stockholm Syndrome is medically not a thing, historically a transparent lie; and socially a tool for avoiding thinking about systemic violence.

Also this is a great book.

https://g.co/kgs/DezwZz
• • •

https://theconversation.com/see-what-you-made-me-do-why-its-time-to-focus-on-the-perpetrator-when-tackling-domestic-violence-119298

Review: See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse by Jess Hill. (Black Inc).

You will not sleep if you read Jess Hill’s new book. Nobody should.

Anybody familiar with Hill’s work as an investigative journalist will have seen her Walkley Award-winning reports on family and domestic violence, including blistering interviews with women and child survivors.

Four years of intensive journalistic investigation have produced See What You Made Me Do, a book that vividly conjures the scale of the problem with fresh terror. It brings together stories of domestic violence and survival from all walks of life – from the affluent neighbourhoods of Sydney’s Bible Belt where “the streets are immaculate, and the houses are huge”, to struggling remote and regional communities.

Hill scrutinises the social and psychological causes of domestic abuse, its terrifying consequences, and – most hauntingly – the failure of our legal and social institutions to adequately respond.

*snip*

[SheltieLover]

1. Kicking for visibility

[bucolic_frolic]

2. That's what psychologists do

Twist reality to suit their own mental comfort and perceived omnipotence. No surprise.

[nolabear]

6. Not good ones.

It’s a frighteningly powerful position and a bad one can cause incredible harm. We have many checks and balances against that but truly terrible individuals can get through. The norm is not that though.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. It's becoming a house of cards

The population is a bell-shaped curve for intelligence. An increasing proportion of people hold graduate degrees from marginal part time skeleton programs with instructors from less than first rate schools. The graduate of today is not the graduate of 35 years ago. Yet they pursue the degree for the prestige, they work because of the debts.

The alleged checks and balances are state licensing programs whose members are subject to the same erosion of standards and quality. Licensing is a minimum standard that is purchased for all effective purposes.

I don't, obviously, share your optimism. I suspect we are as often making people crazy or dependent as making people well.

[Major Nikon]

10. The entire field is riddled with junk science

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/08/27/642218377/in-psychology-and-other-social-sciences-many-studies-fail-the-reproducibility-te

Whether or not they have ill or careless intent, you still have the fact most of the underlying science is flawed. That's not to say it's all bad, but there is much that is.

[MerryBlooms]

12. 💯 Major, you should make this an OP.

[Major Nikon]

18. There's too many who don't want to hear it

There are good mental health practitioners out there and there are good outcomes and I'd never suggest otherwise. However, the good ones are fully aware of the limitations of the field of psychology. As you pointed out licensing leaves much to be desired and varies widely from state to state and some have next to no education and experience requirements. People in religious organizations can offer certain types of counseling with no licensing whatsoever and it's fully within the confines of the law. In any other medical field that's known as quackery. Even in the best of situations you have to wonder what sort of science is behind the qualifications of bona fide psychotherapists.

[MerryBlooms]

21. I was helped tremendously by a therapist who specializes

In PTSD. She was in weekly contact with my Primary Doc. They discussed my progress, different therapies and those risks, and medicine recommendations. I was so fortunate to have an amazing team working on me. I don't know anyone in my family, or friends, where their Primary worked so closely with their therapist. I believe that is a critical gap in care for most people.

[Genki Hikari]

25. I've dealt with a few in my day

Including working for them.

I found maybe two good ones.

The rest were crappy people. Especially the one I had to work for. Maybe in a therapy session she had a clue, but as a boss, she was the worst I ever had.

Tell you what--you can try to find one to undo the outrageous treatment I got when I went to one after my gang rape. The one who told me I should be grateful that "at least" I hadn't been stabbed or beaten, unlike some of the other victims she'd had as patients.

Gee, I'm sorry about what happened to those other women, but that doesn't change that what happened to me was pretty fricking awful all on its own. It would have been a GOOD thing to help me sort out the rage and fear and shame and pain of what I had just gone through TWO DAYS AGO, rather than invalidating all of it in some moronic attempt to make me "feel better" about it.

[Gaugamela]

14. Spot on. They're basically preachers. The ones I've met were all obvious narcissists.

I’m amazed there hasn’t been a major exposé on the profession.

[nolabear]

19. I don't even know how to respond to this.

I probably know well over a hundred psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists. I was one until my retirement. The field is highly specialized and includes MDs who strictly prescribe meds, neuropsychologists who test for myriad syndromes, illnesses, outcomes of physical and mental trauma and so forth, forensics experts, clinicians who treat patients in many forms of therapy from talk therapy to CBT to group therapy and many others. And that barely touches it. I can’t tell you what percentage do good work but it’s the vast majority. I’ve known some awful ones, and some narcissists, but they tend to be loners who don’t do the interconnected work most of us do in order to help as best we can.

[Genki Hikari]

26. Then you guys need to provide a ratings service

Because I've rarely encountered the good ones.

Most of them have been flat-out awful as people, and as therapists. They actively caused greater harm and ZERO help.

[nolabear]

30. I'm very sorry that was your experience.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. My Wife Had One Psych Doctor Like That

There was an air of self-superiority & omnipotence surrounding her. Yet she's the one who put my wife on a new med that triggered hyponatremia that nearly killed my wife. On top of that, I had to be the one who figured it out & laid out the plan to test it.
A couple days later she tells my wife "You're lucky you married a scientist." Yep, she said that. My wife was lucky she didn't die because of who she married. Accepted no responsibility for the problem. It just couldn't be her fault, now could it.
My wife had another one for whom there is no more delicate description than "nuts".
Gladly, my wife found 2 good ones since and has been with them for 16 years. (The first of them moved to Indy,)
So, just with my limited perspective, I've seen what you describe.

[Demovictory9]

3. That is so interesting

[imaginary girl]

4. Thanks! Enjoyed your summary!

[Journeyman]

5. Thank you for the cogent summary. It disabused me of previous misconceptions . . .

quite a different take from popular opinion, and infinitely more believable, too.

[nolabear]

7. I had no idea. What a travesty.

[BadgerMom]

9. K & R

Thank you! Bookmarked.

[MerryBlooms]

11. r&k Thank you.

[appalachiablue]

13. K/R Very enlightening, thanks.

[dlk]

15. More of the blame women, first, propaganda machine

Last edited Sun Jan 8, 2023, 12:09 PM - Edit history (1)

Throughout history, it has been easier to blame women than for men to take responsibility for their actions.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Thank you for this.

I always thought "Stockholm Syndrome" was utter bullshit.

[SunSeeker]

17. K & R

[JoeOtterbein]

20. K n R Thanks for posting...nt

[niyad]

22. KNR and bookmarking. Thank you for this truly depressing, but not surprising,

post.

[Kennah]

23. The criticisms of Stockholm Syndrome are quite strong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome#Criticism

Interview with Kristin Enmark. She appears to have been very strategic in her thinking and decisions. This certainly would have been a traumatic event, and I think she was clear-thinking and level-headed throughout.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b083lt5n

[Celerity]

24. Nils Bejerot was an asshole on many fronts, one of worst of the influential Swedes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Bejerot

Nils Johan Artur Bejerot (September 21, 1921 – November 29, 1988) was a Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist best known for his work on drug abuse and for coining the phrase Stockholm syndrome. Bejerot was one of the top drug abuse researchers in Sweden. His view that drug abuse was a criminal matter and that drug use should have severe penalties was highly influential in Sweden and in other countries. He believed that the cure for drug addiction was to make drugs unavailable and socially unacceptable. He also advocated the idea that drug abuse could transition from being a symptom to a disease in itself.

snip

Before Bejerot began to participate in the debate on drugs in 1965, it was the dominant view in Sweden that drug abuse was a private health problem and that law enforcement measures should be aimed at drug dealers. Before 1968, the maximum offence for a grave drug crime was one year in prison. Bejerot objected to this and stressed the importance of measures against the demand for drugs, against users, and their importance in the spread of addiction to new addicts. Bejerot did not accept unemployment and poor private economy as explanations for increased use of illegal drugs. He pointed out that alcohol abuse in the 1930s was comparatively limited in Sweden, despite high unemployment and economic depression.

snip

Berejot also strongly advocated for strict anti-drug laws. In 1965 Bejerot started to engage in the Swedish debate on drug abuse, encouraging tough action against the new and rapidly growing problem. He followed closely a rather clumsy experiment with legal prescription of heroin, amphetamine, etc. to drug addicts, studies that formed the basis for his thesis on the epidemic drug spread. Bejerot claimed that the program should increase the number of drug addicts and showed through counting of injection marks that the number of drug addicts in Stockholm continued to grow fast during the experiment. The program was stopped in 1968. From 1968 and onward, the difference between the epidemic type, the therapeutic type and the endemic type of drug abuse was a repeated issue in Bejerot's writing and lectures.

In 1969, Bejerot became one of the founders of the Association for a Drug-Free Society (RNS), which played - and still plays - an important role in shaping Swedish drug policies. RNS don't accept any of the state grants which are available. Bejerot warned of the consequences of an ‘epidemic addiction’, prompted by young, psychologically and socially unstable persons who, usually after direct personal initiation from another drug abuser, begin to use socially nonaccepted, intoxicating drugs to gain euphoria. In 1972, Bejerots' reports were used as one of the reasons for increasing the maximum penalty for grave drug offences in Sweden to 10 years in prison. In 1974 he was called to testify as one of 21 scientific experts on marijuana for a subcommittee of the United States Senate on the marijuana-hashish epidemic and its impact on United States security.

He advocated zero tolerance for illegal use and possession of drugs, including all drugs not covered by prescription, something that today is law in Sweden. In the early 1980s, he became one of the "Top 10 opinion molders" in Sweden for this. Bejerot is by UNODC and many others recognized as founder of the Swedish strategy against recreational use of drugs. His demand for zero tolerance as a drug policy was for a long time seen as extreme, but during the late 1970s opinion changed. He is without doubt the person most responsible for changing the Swedish drug policy in a restrictive direction something that made him a controversial person, both before and after his death. Many people considered Bejerot as a good humanist advocating a viable policy against narcotics and Robert DuPont considers him "the hero of the Swedish drug abuse story." Others view this as a reactionary hindering of new treatment practices against drug abuse.

[yardwork]

27. I had no idea! What an asshole.

One of the architects of the "war on drugs" that is really a war on people.

[ProfessorGAC]

29. Very Interesting

Learned something new today.