What Is Stockholm Syndrome?
2. Norrmalmstorg Robbery
The syndrome got its name from an incident that happened at Norrmalmstorg Square, Stockholm. It occurred in 1973 in the city’s Kreditbanken, and the incident was an attempted bank robbery by a Swede named Jan-Erik Olsson. The robbery went wrong, the bank was surrounded by police, and Olsson took four people as hostages.
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The hostages remained captive to Olsson for six days, but they were all eventually released unharmed. When it came to Olsson’s trial, however, none of the hostages were willing to testify against him. In fact, they even started raising money for his defense. The event prompted psychiatrist Frank Ochberg to name the phenomenon “Stockholm syndrome.”
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