In the famous Jaycee Lee Dugard case, people marveled at Jaycee's refusal to run away from her captors. The young woman was captured by a sex offender at age 11, and held in captivity in a shed behind his home for 18 years. After being periodically raped, she bore her abductor two daughters. Yet the young lady never tried to escape her captivity. Time magazine reports that Jaycee would answer the door for visitors or appear in public with her captors, and never once did she cry for help or attempt to evade this man. Her stepfather explained in an interview that Jaycee still had feelings for the man that she was attacked by, and that in her mind their union was almost a sort of marriage.
This may sound bizarre to the average reader, who would assume Jaycee would be irate at her captors. Yet her odd affection for her abductor is not unusual. In fact, this state of mind has a name, known as Stockholm Syndrome. This is a form of terror-bonding or traumatic-bonding, where a victim begins to swear allegiance with her captor due to her circumstances. Like Dugard, Patty Hearst was abducted in 1974. She was taken by the Symbionese Liberation Army, but instead of resisting her new life, she became an accomplice with them, even helping the group with a grand bank robbery.
Stockholm Syndrome received its' name from a famous bank robbery case that took place in 1973 in Sweden. The criminals held four Stockton bank employees in captivity in a vault while they robbed the bank, and left them there at gun point for six days. When the captives were finally released, they embraced their captors in joy, and declared loyalty to them. They even disagreed with their arrest. There is no widely known diagnostic for this state-of-mind, but it is prevalent in many children and teens that have been kidnapped. Oftentimes these individuals highlight the fact that they were given food and water, and a place to rest, and do not complain about the other aspects of their condition.
To give another example, Natascha Kampusch was abducted in Austria at age 10, and confined in a windowless cellar for 8 years. She ran away in 2006, and the criminal who had held her in confinement threw himself in front of a train in despair. Oddly, upon finding out about the kidnapper's death, Natascha burst into tears. In a documentary made on her captivity, she broke down during the interview talking about how sorry she felt for her captor. She called him "poor and misguided." Many scholars agree that children are especially vulnerable to Stockholm Syndrome, since they are being exposed to these conditions during an especially vulnerable time in their lives. Also, children may misconstrue sexual relationships with their captors, and begin to think of the acts as ways of showing affection.
Unfortunately, Stockholm Syndrome can prove a serious disadvantage in some court cases. When a victim is emotionally tied to his or her captors, then the victim is less likely to accuse them of a crime. Mental-health experts agree that it is possible to recover from Stockholm Syndrome in most cases, though it may take time and professional psychological help. The road to recovery is contingent upon the nature and intensity of the hostage situation, and the victim's individual way of dealing with the trauma. A 2007 FBI report stated that 27 percent of all hostages display signs of affection for their abductors. Normally, those who are affectionate with their captors have shared information about their family and personal life with them. Time Magazine suggests that this may be one of the only ways that a captive individual is able to stay alive. By showing the criminal that he or she is another human being, the hostage has a better chance of surviving captivity.
