Stockholm Syndrome?

[anthony]

When you throw in chained to a wall and locked in a closet (and other stuff), its not hard to see that I was indeed a captured.

I think wikipedia actually has a good difference between the two, being:

Traumatic bonding occurs as the result of ongoing cycles of abuse in which the intermittent reinforcement of reward and punishment creates powerful emotional bonds that are resistant to change.

Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon described in 1973 in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.

Honestly, I wouldn't go past that first sentence of each, which is the "punch in the face" distinction. Now you just have to apply the one that matches your situation based on the keywords bolded.

If you endured childhood abuse where you were tortured and punished on an ongoing basis, and as an adult you still felt a strong emotional bond to your abuser, then traumatic bonding would apply. Yes, you can remove this with therapy, but we're talking about when you experience it.

If you were taken hostage, and become close to your capture and feel positively towards them, then stockholm syndrome would apply.

It took me 5 minutes to read that and interpret the differnece for myself. So whilst being captive may be part of your abuse, was that an actual hostage situation? Or was that part and parcel of your abuse patterns? That is the difference.

Can you have both? Maybe... but I think you would have to really look at things rationally, not emotionally. Within your abuse, did you then get taken hostage by someone else outside your normal scope of abusers, and as a result, do you feel empathy, sympathy and positively about that captor? Again, aside from all normal abuse patterns where strong emotional connection is present, which seems to fall under trauma bonding.

 

[EveHarrington]

In my basic opinion I think that using Stockholm syndrome in the context of parental abuse is twisting the syndrome to fit because that's what you personally want it to be.

I think this sounds familiar. People wanting to have PTSD? Yeah----

It may not be an official diagnosis but I still don't think it's a good idea to twist these terms because you googled something and it "seems" to fit.

The key terms are "kidnapping" and "captors". Not parents who raised you from birth and treat you like crap and abuse you. To disregard these two key terms is a complete misunderstanding of what Stockholm Syndrome is.

No. Not good. At all.

IMHO.

 

[Sideways]

I feel like because of that posting we (Lost and I) are having to justify what happened to us or those that we loved.

This is a space where I don't think you, or Lost, or me, need to feel this way. I relate a lot when I read about Stockholm, but I wasn't captured, or held hostage, and I know that people here don't interpret my situation as being any 'less' just because I can't say "I have Stockholm".

My heart goes out to your kids, whatever the right label is, it really does. The 'right' label is only relevant to me when it comes to understanding and then treating whatever is going on. The suffering is theirs, and it doesn't change if it was caused by a captor or a parent - only the label is relevant there.

 

[shimmerz]

empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.

Yes, and that is exactly what i was talking about. This was the issue I was attempting to address in that post. And hearing some of the replies in that thread helped me tremendously. Because I was looking for someone who experienced such a thing from their parents. Children who defended their obviously abusive parents at any cost. Like my children have done for over a decade.

Getting past the black and white thinking that I see here, and the accusations that I am 'googling shit' and saying eeeny meeny meiny mo. What if I am trying to describe something that has a solid foot in both camps? What if trauma bonding doesn't cover the a topic that I am trying to address but a different phenomena is?
Please suggest a means of doing that without causing all of this drama? Because I am just not understanding this reaction. And I am not going to stop talking about this because people don't agree with my choice of wording. It is a very key component of my life choices right now.

 

[joeylittle]

What if trauma bonding doesn't cover the a topic that I am trying to address but a different phenomena is?

I know my only point was that trauma bonding does cover this - 100%.

Trauma bonding allows for both intense defense of the abuser and an awareness of abuse. I promise I'm not trying to be black/white or the word police. You've said trauma bonding doesn't address the empathy and sympathy the victim has towards the perpetrator - but it fully does.

It seems like you are preferring Stockholm because of what you think it means, not what it actually means. But I am possibly misreading you, and am not posting this to start an argument.

Stockholm is inextricably tied to hostage or kidnap situations. I wish people wouldn't say something was 'like' being kidnapped/held hostage....you were or you weren't. It's no different than saying it was 'like rape', or 'like combat', or 'like stalking'. People who have been through those things know that they simply are.

I want to be super-clear: I'm not talking about any individual on this thread when I say 'people'. I'm referring to society at large. And I'm not meaning to say that everyone needs to conform to my view. I'm a believer in specificity, is all. I'm aware it comes off as pedantic, and I am sorry for that. Thanks for bearing with me.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I wish people wouldn't say something was 'like' being kidnapped/held hostage....you were or you weren't.

Not really. Not when, yes a parent that birthed me, chained me to a wall, put me in a closet for however long she wished, chained me to a bed for days at a time, chained me outside for days at a time, chained me to the toliet, etc. And other things i have yet to write about on here. I felt captured. There is no if ands or buts that I felt I could not leave and looking back i wouldnt of been able to.

To later not wanting to leave and then years later bit your face off if you dared to say anything bad about them.

Is it trauma bonding? Could be and im ok about that. As long as it answers "why", Im fine with it as Im not "twisting" a syndrome to fit me but rather Im trying to answer existing "why"s. But to lessen that (im not saying you are), that feeling of being a captive, and to identify with kidnap victims way before i realized why, and the reaction I had for years in therapy, years before i found this site, and the years it took me to even realize that was abuse or not ok, by saying that she was someone that gave birth to me and by toping it off by incorrectly stating that i googled it when in reality my therapist advised i had it and then worked with me for years with it, is just simply wrong.

If thats trauma bonding, again, im ok with it. But it does not take away with the fact i was indeed a captive and i wont allow that fact that took me so very long to come to terms with, taken away.

I havent commented much here for a reason. Im trying to keep my head here, keep my cool if you will. So i hope ive done that.

 

[EveHarrington]

@shimmerz

Why are you completely ignoring the "kidnapping" and "captor" aspects of Stockholm Syndrome?

IMHO this is akin to ignoring criterion A of PTSD.

In both instances, these things are needed to have the syndrome/disorder.

I think you fail to understand that MANY people defend their abusive parents.

Stockholm syndrome is quite different. In Stockholm syndrome the bonding is not with a parent. The bonding comes AFTER the terrifying part of being abducted and held captive, after hating the captor.

I think you will continue to be dismissed (in general) by people as long as you continue to use this term when it does not apply.

I also think it's a bit disrespectful to those who have Stockholm syndrome.

We're your children ever held captive against their will? I've only seen how you describe that they bonded with a narcissist father.

The bottom line is that you're not a professional so why are you using these terms which you don't fully understand to describe a totally different kind of situation?

What you're doing is akin to saying "nightmares are a part of PTSD so it must be PTSD!" Which totally ignores the crux of the disorder.

 

[shimmerz]

Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes "strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other."[4] One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual's response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be perceived as a threat.[5]

There is no widely agreed upon diagnostic criteria to identify Stockholm Syndrome and it does not appear in theDSM or the ICD. However, studies have found evidence of emotional bonding with captors in a variety of hostage OR abusive situations, including abused children and women, POWs, cult members, incest victims, and concentration camp prisoners. In Nazi Germany in the 1930s, it was joked that some Jews shouted "Down with Us"[18] and supported Hitler's policies.[19]

Stockholm syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anything else? Can we stop it now?

 

[Silver.]

when I read of something new, I like to do a ton of research (so just putting my two cents in)
-The wikipedia page is not saying that traumatic bonding can be seen as stockholm, rather the other way around
-I don't rely on wikipedia only, and found an interesting article in "counseling resource", as it talks about SS in different forms of abusive relationships (when it occurs at a societal level, that is referenced in many other sites such as "howstuffworks")
-while other sites clearly state words such as "captor" "hostage" and "kidnap" be involve (different encyclopedias online and dictionary's)

it's interesting when looking at it objectively, that a case could be argued in both directions, especially because what I have read says that this syndrome isn't commonly diagnosed in people (and perhaps because it is so widely disputed) x

 

[joeylittle]

Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes "strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other."[4]

It is what it is. It can be seen as something else, yes. That sentence is cited from a journal piece called (ironically) "Traumatic Bonding: the development of emotional attachments in battered women and other relationships of intermittent abuse. Victimology: An International Journal, 1(4), pp. 139–155, Dutton, D.G and Painter, S.L. (1981)

Of course we can stop, because it's clear we can just agree to disagree. I respect your point of view, and don't need to tear it down.

My belief (based on my reading of multiple sources), is that Traumatic Bonding is the larger concept, of which Stockholm Syndrome is a relatively small part. Traumatic bonding encompasses a spectrum (which includes Stockholm syndrome, battered-spouse syndrome, Narcissistic Victim Syndrome, and likely, others). That's my interpretation of the pieces written. (I wrote that more to sum it for myself than anything). And, I'd recommend (if you ever feel like going for more digging) that you use the term 'trauma bonding', because it's been much more widely written about, so it seems. Or, more recently written about.

If thats trauma bonding, again, im ok with it. But it does not take away with the fact i was indeed a captive and i wont allow that fact that took me so very long to come to terms with, taken away.

I'm certainly not capable of taking that away from you. I don't have that power, and neither does this debate. I'm grateful for this thread because I've learned much more about trauma bonding than I understood to begin with. I also (now) want to do some reflecting, on why this debate bothers me as much as it does.

I think part of it is (simply) that I was very literally a kidnap victim. Like, actually taken by an actual stranger and actually chained naked in an unknown location for a period of days - I don't know for how long, my best guess right now is 5 or 6. Not sure about that one.

I'm a fairly literal thinker. So, those are my facts. I'm not trying to compete with any facts. I see all criterion A trauma as one horizontal line, nothing is higher or lower than anything else; and, it's impossible to scale. Completely impossible. It's even hard to understand where to 'draw the line', so to speak, between C-PTSD and PTSD. By some definitions, I would be considered C-PTSD...but from other angles, not. Those people who confidently identify as C-PTSD understand it better than I do, I think. So, I listen to them, and try to understand it from their perspective. Fundamentally, my trauma was not enacted repeatedly and constantly throughout my childhood/adolescence: I think that's my personal understanding of CPTSD, and why I don't think it fits my experience.

Anyway - that's probably part of it. But it doesn't seem like all of it. So, once again, I'm grateful for this thread because it's teased out some stuff of my own that I definitely want to work on.

If I could thread-ban myself, I likely would, just for being argumentative. But, I can't. What I can do is take a vow of silence on the thread, which I'll do, as of this post.

I really am grateful for the dialogue.

 

[sedna]

@shimmerz

Why are you completely ignoring the "kidnapping" and "captor" aspe...

I cant quite understand the rigid definition you're clinging to here @EveHarrington.

With that type of apparent reasoning, you could also say that all conditioned responses can only be referred to as Pavlovian if there are dogs involved.

Learned helplessness is also a factor in what could be described as Stockholm Syndrome in children or adults in situations they believe they cant remove themselves from. In the case of children with abusive parents, they are very much in the same category as hostages. Learned helplessness is still called that because about five different psychiatrists came up with it and studied it at the same time, although Abrams tends to get credit by using it for CBT studies.
Still, its not Abrams Syndrome.

An adaptive malformation of roles and perceptions of relationships are the result of resiliency on the part of the child or hostage. Reality flexibility is a survival mechanism, those who are unable to adapt with resiliency aren't as likely to survive or stay sane. When the situation is ended, they will either continue to deny the reality of the situation, or they will feel ashamed of how they were complicit in it and have trouble identifying themselves as being victims.


What Stockholm did was explore the emotional and psychological process of those who adapt this way vs. those who dont, and what the ongoing effects were after release of captivity. In situations like Patty Hearst, law enforcement had difficulty knowing how to approach it. What he took advantage of was an opportunity to use kidnapping victims as a sort of blind study. There were no genetic or prior relationships involved making the process less clear cut. It is not a psychological study exclusive to criminally kidnapped people.

In child developmental psychology, the children with extreme abuse or neglect that survive and ultimately thrive in adulthood all have an unusual capacity to adapt.
Unlike the other children in their family category, they show few if any of the known psychological or behavioral warning signs and are usually well liked by peers.

It's the same adaptive mechanism that can be described as Stockholm Syndrome, and it's equally atypical. In both child development studies and Stockholm's research, neither could be firmly linked to intelligence or other mitigating factors without being successfully challenged in other studies.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I'm certainly not capable of taking that away from you. I don't have that power, and neither does this debate.

I didn't mean that you or the thread was taking it away. It was more of being refered as I couldnt be a capture. Or how i was understanding it. I take ownership of that.

I do like that wikipedia doc that references cults. I dont think many can get what goes on in the mind of a cult survivor but another cult survivor and each are so different that its even hard then.

But honestly, as long as the "why"s are answered, I honestly dont care what its called really. I just want to name what goes on in my head is all.