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"Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

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Re: "Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

#61

Post by nullc »

Why does everything have to be a syndrome?

When any animal, including humans, is trapped in a situation they can't escape, failing to adopt a degree of acceptance is bad for their health and survival. Almost all other animals will stop fighting after being held captive for a while, so why shouldn't humans?

When people do bad things they almost always have a reason for it. The reason may be sick, twisted, or wrong. Its 'justification' may be prohibited by our culture and for good reason. The causes of their actions may be, a lest from some perspective, an inevitable conclusion of forces which they felt they could not control. An open mind could often understand why or have sympathy for it, even if they continue to disapprove in the strongest way possible.

Humans are very social and often become friendly with people they spend a lot of time around or interact with a lot. Even when they start out with very different views or places, or with a profound disagreement.

In plenty of situations outside of captive abuse people sometimes fall into the trap of becoming addicted to abusive treatment, be it the rare bits of approval or reprieve from the expected abuse, or simply the fact that they're the center of attention (even if its negative attention). -- if you've not seen this happen first hand, I envy your sheltered existence.

People outside of a situation are also not blameless. Why didn't they prevent it? Why didn't they rescue the person sooner? Why can't they understand how significant the event was and why can't they understand how significant the event wasn't? Why can't they accept that you do or don't feel defined by it? I think it would be easy to feel worse about the people who let you be taken hostage than the hostage taker, the hostage taker owed you nothing, the hostage taker wasn't in a position of trust, the hostage taker will suffer retribution for their acts, but perhaps the people who screwed up preventing it will be called heros.

So with all these factors at play why should any out of a wide spectrum of responses to a adverse situation not be considered perfectly natural?

Re: "Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

#62

Post by readthenotes1 »

jjk166 wrote: post #14
andrewla wrote: post #8

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…

> 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…

Rape of the Sabine Women comes to mind as a possibly actual case of Stockholm syndrome. Not sure we can scrutinize it though

Re: "Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

#63

Post by gklitz »

The Stockholm syndrome is when propaganda get people to believe a theory so strongly that even when all evidence and circumstance gets removed, even when it’s scientifically proven to not be true, even when direct facts contradict the stated propagada, people continue to believe the propaganda.

In a hostage situation, telling the government “stop trying to get us murdered” is not a mental illness. Being dissatisfied with the governments handling of the situation is not “siding with your captors because you’ve fallen in love with them” but people will to the end of times continue to believe these falls narratives because the government propaganda to discredit completely reasonable criticism was just that damn effective.

Re: "Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

#65

Post by RevEng »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #53
engineer_22 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans aren't rational, they're made of flesh and blood.

And for those irrational cases we have labels and descriptions such as stockholm syndrome, or social anxiety disorder and whatnot.

Irrational behavior goes well beyond clinical mental disorders. There are dozens of known biases and heuristics that we all follow every day that are irrational. There's a big difference between disproportionately attributing blame and a mental disorder like Stockholm syndrome. Just look at any news post here and watch people make wild accusations against all parties involved based on a 500 word synopsis of an otherwise complicated incident that is still under investigation. It happens constantly.

Re: "Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

#66

Post by RevEng »

gradientsrneat wrote: post #27

When I looked into the history behind the Streisand Effect, my opinion soured on the term, for similar reasons claimed in the article: The entymology boils down to one woman's wellbeing being disregarded in a manner that is more common for women than it should be. In the case of Stockholm Syndrome, the connection one may draw from the article is the issue of women being sexualized. In the case of the Streisand Effect…

You completely misunderstand what the Streisand effect is. It's the old saying "You can't close the barn door once the cows are out." She wanted to stop the spread of knowledge that was already available publicly by legally blocking sources sharing it. But trying to hide something just makes people want it more, so doing this will actually draw more attention to it. It's the same way we see scandals blow up on TV every day. Embarrassing things are embarrassing, but trying to cover them up is even more salacious. Yelling "Don't look!" isn't a good way to hide. Instead, it's best to say nothing and let people lose interest.

Re: "Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

#67

Post by gradientsrneat »

scotty79 wrote: post #28
gradientsrneat wrote: post #27

When I looked into the history behind the Streisand Effect, my opinion soured on the term, for similar reasons claimed in the article: The entymology boils down to one woman's wellbeing being disregarded in a manner that is more common for women than it should be. In the case of Stockholm Syndrome, the connection one may draw from the article is the issue of women being sexualized. In the case of the Streisand Effect…

> The entymology boils down to one woman's wellbeing being disregarded in a manner that is more common for women than it should be. Do you believe that survival of a male hostage in similar situation would be treated with greater care?

I won't respond directly to your whataboutism, as it is not productive, but let me put it this way: In the case of the article, Freudian psychology is pseudoscience and has been widely debunked. Therefore, continuing to advocate for Freudian psychology is harmful.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the article as a whole for reasons previously stated.

Re: "Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

#68

Post by gradientsrneat »

RevEng wrote: post #66
gradientsrneat wrote: post #27

When I looked into the history behind the Streisand Effect, my opinion soured on the term, for similar reasons claimed in the article: The entymology boils down to one woman's wellbeing being disregarded in a manner that is more common for women than it should be. In the case of Stockholm Syndrome, the connection one may draw from the article is the issue of women being sexualized. In the case of the Streisand Effect…

You completely misunderstand what the Streisand effect is. It's the old saying "You can't close the barn door once the cows are out." She wanted to stop the spread of knowledge that was already available publicly by legally blocking sources sharing it. But trying to hide something just makes people want it more, so doing this will actually draw more attention to it. It's the same way we see scandals blow up on TV eve…

I know what the Streisand Effect "means". See my statement: "I think the concepts behind these terms make sense, though."

I am also not trying to argue about rights to privacy. There are already many threads on this website about privacy.

Re: "Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

#69

Post by throw4847285 »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #59
throw4847285 wrote: post #9

It's the kind of idea that is captivating from a literary perspective but doesn't actually make any sense if you think about it, which is why it has showed up in so many movies, tv shows, novels, etc. My favorite subversion is in Die Hard where the person on TV is explaining that the victims are likely bonding with their captors while a scene plays of Gruber and his gang terrorizing people who are huddled in fear.

It makes complete sense! If you are in a hunter gatherer tribe 70,000 years ago and you get conquered by a neighboring tribe, as a female what is the genetically adaptive behavior? Fight the conquerer and also be killed? Or…?

That's the beauty of evolutionary psychology. Look at the world you live in, pick any facet of it real or imagined, and make up an entirely unsubstantiated "just so" story rooted in a narrative of hunter gatherer life that cannot be proven to be true.

Re: "Stockholm Syndrome" was invented by police to discredit a female hostage (2020)

#70

Post by scotty79 »

gradientsrneat wrote: post #67
scotty79 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The entymology boils down to one woman's wellbeing being disregarded in a manner that is more common for women than it should be. Do you believe that survival of a male hostage in similar situation would be treated with greater care?

I won't respond directly to your whataboutism, as it is not productive, but let me put it this way: In the case of the article, Freudian psychology is pseudoscience and has been widely debunked. Therefore, continuing to advocate for Freudian psychology is harmful. Overall, I have mixed feelings about the article as a whole for reasons previously stated.

Sorry, I don't follow. What whataboutism? Where did the Freud came into the picture? I though I asked you a simple question about your belief. This should be easily answerable just with a single yes or no.
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