Very interesting article from Clint Van Zandt, an FBI Profiler:
http://clintvanzandt.newsvine.com/_...gard-stockholm-syndrome-or-just-staying-alive
On June 10, 1991, then eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped as she waited for a school bus 150 yards from her home. She was rescued this week due, in part, to a sharp-eyed University of California (Berkley) Police Officer going the extra mile in an otherwise routine interview. Dugard was allegedly abducted by convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy, who pulled Dugard into their car that sunny June day and kept their victim, and the eventual two children fathered by Garrido with young Dugard, in tents, sheds and other outbuildings in the rear yard of the Garrido residence. In this case Garrido and his two offspring by Dugard, girls ages 11 and 15, were trying to pass out Garrido's religious handouts on the college campus when confronted by the officer. Garrido did not have a permit to distribute such literature and when the officer attempted to speak to the two children, they avoided eye contact with him. A check on Garrido revealed his registered sex offender status and a call to his parole officer resulted in an interview of Garrido where the true identity of Dugard and her two daughters was finally determined. Almost two decades later Dugard was placed in touch with her biological mother and step father, two people who never lost hope in her eventual return. But why, some have begun to ask, didn't Dugard try to escape and thereby rescue herself from her captors?
Elizabeth Smart was held nine months by her captive before being identified and even then she was initially reluctant to admit her true identity. Elisabeth Fritzl was held in an underground bunker by her biological father, giving birth to seven children by him before she was finally rescued, this after 24 years of captivity, and Shawn Hornbeck was eleven when kidnapped in 2002. Hornbeck was rescued four years later when his abductor was identified after kidnapping yet another young boy. Shawn had lived in relative safety and security with his captor, apparently never trying to escape the emotional bonds that held him to his kidnapper. Why, once again, didn't Hornbeck, or Patricia Hearst, or other similar kidnap victims attempt to escape their captors?
The Stockholm Syndrome
In August 1973, a heavily-armed robber by the name of Olafson swaggered into a busy bank in downtown Stockholm, Sweden. Firing shots as he entered, he took three women and a man hostage, strapped dynamite to their bodies, and herded them into a subterranean bank vault where he refused police demands for his surrender and the release of his hostages for the next six days.
After the eventual arrest of the robbers (a friend of the bank robber who was in prison at the time had been brought mid-standoff to the bank at the demand of Olafson) and the rescue of the four victims, the continued friendly and caring attitude on the part of some of the hostages toward their captors was viewed with suspicion. This was especially so when the police considered that the captives were abused, threatened, and had allegedly feared for their lives during the week they had been held against their will. Authorities were even more amazed when they found out that one or more of the female hostages may have had consensual physical intimacy with their captors.
The relationship between the robbers and their former captives thereafter saw former hostage Kristin break off her engagement to another man in order to become engaged to Olafson; while another former hostage started a defense fund to pay for the robbers' legal defense.
The relationship that can develop between hostages and kidnap victims and their captors is now known as "the Stockholm Syndrome," a type of emotional bonding that is in reality a survival strategy for victims of emotional and physical abuse including not only hostages, but also battered spouses and partners, abused children, and even POWs.
The bond that exists between the captor/abuser and his or her victim is strong and can compel the victim to stay with (or otherwise support the actions of the abuser) when the need to run is blatantly obvious to everyone but the victim. The investment that one has made in the relationship directly impacts the ability to recognize the negative or threatening aspects of the association. This also affects the ability to either correct or flee.
A kidnap victim is told that if she tries to escape, she'll be killed. Wolfgang Priklopil, the Austrian kidnapper of then 10-year-old Natascha Kampusch, told his victim that he slept with grenades under his pillow and that the house in which she was held was wired with explosives, suggesting she would die if she tried to escape. Eight years later Kampusch finally jumped from a car in which she was traveling with her kidnapper and escaped. He later committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. Other victims are told that their family members and even their pets will be killed if they try to escape or that their "former" family had secretly arranged for their kidnapping or had otherwise moved on without a care in the world for the victim. For many kidnap victims, the need to survive may eventually develop into some type of dependency bond with their captor and their learned helplessness may eventually evolve into a type of misplaced love that could somehow be reciprocated by the kidnapper.
The bottom line is that staying alive can allow us to adopt to the worst of situations, something, perhaps, similar to women who are victims of domestic violence but do not try to leave or "escape" their abuser. The challenge for victims such as Jaycee Lee Dugard is to understand they did what they had to do to survive and that they have nothing to be ashamed of. This will take time and care and while some wounds never heal, time can help. In the case of Jaycee and her two daughters, none of whom attended school or saw a doctor or dentist or had any friends during their captivity, life and their position in the world outside of the tents and sheds they lived in for most or all of their lives will be a lengthy learning experience that will take years for them to process. And for the two monsters that are responsible for this travesty; their day in court will eventually come. As for me, this is just one more reason for a one-strike law for sexual predators that would prevent known offenders like Garrido from reoffending in such terrible ways.