I debated about whether to make my most recent SMIRK installment, “Stockholm Syndrome” free. It touches on an issue that I think is very worthy of public discussion: the possibility that this “syndrome” was invented at the behest of cops who wanted to discredit an inconveniently ungrateful female hostage in 1973.
Unsurprisingly, the syndrome has often been used as a tool for discrediting women (as well as for Lifetime movie plots and salacious daytime talk show topics) up to today. (Trust me. I have some personal knowledge of this.)
Ultimately, I decided not to make the post free, though. It also involved Martin Shkreli’s incarceration, and included some of his prison disciplinary records. Those seemed appropriate for a more select audience.
I’m going to talk a little bit more about what I found by looking into Stockholm Syndrome and what it’s really all about. For additional reference, you can also read:
My recent SMIRK installment, “Stockholm Syndrome”
This interesting Texas Monthly piece “The Warrior’s Bride” on Cynthia Ann Parker
Investigative reporter Jess Hill’s book “See What You Made Me Do,” about power issues in domestic abuse, and which touches on the dubious origins of Stockholm Syndrome
This pretty amazing tweet thread by writer Erin Bow, who discovered Hill’s book and was outraged by what she read
For more detail, you can try author David King’s “Six Days in August: The Story of Stockholm Syndrome.” (In this excerpt in Time, he puts the word “diagnosed”in quotes, so that offers a sense of where he landed in all of this.)
Notes on "Stockholm Syndrome"