NCJ Number
70539
Journal
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Volume: 347 Dated: (June 20, 1980) Pages: 129-136
Date Published
1980
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Victims of sudden, unexpected, violent crime respond according to certain sequential behaviors, the duration and intensity of which are influenced by the nature and quality of contact with the criminal.
Abstract
Each reported response behavior is illustrated with examples from both domestic and foreign hostage situations. The four phases of victim response are shock; denial; traumatic depression and recrimination; and resolution and integration. Often terrorized victims respond to the sudden, overwhelming danger to their lives by a paralysis of affect called 'frozen fright.' It superficially appears to be a cooperative and friendly behavior that confuses even the victim, the criminal, the family and friends of the victim, the police, and society. Traumatic infantilism, the response to survival with the early adaptive behavior of childhood, compels victims to cling to the very person endangering their lives and accounts for the obedient, placid, compliant, and submissive behavior seen in frozen fright. Even the memory of terror, with the criminal not present, can produce traumatic psychological infantilism. Pathological transference occurs when the individual's life is threatened, considered, and then spared by the captor. The victim then no longer experiences the threat but feels the criminal has given life. These two components--traumatic psychological infantilism and pathological transference--form the crucial elements in the Stockholm syndrome. Although described as the hostage's identifying with the terrorist, such behavior is actually the victim's attempt to relate to the terrorist. Furthermore, the victim interprets and experiences any negotiations for release as a danger. Essential both in the treatment of the acute and delayed response after release is the recognition of the victim's need to ventilate both feelings of hostility towards the negotiators, as well as feelings of pathological transference towards the terrorist. During the siege, it is important not to disturb the development of the pathological transference because such action would only activate the victim's dormant terror and may produce hopelessness, which may, in turn, result in panic-terror behavior. The negotiator must reinforce the pseudohelping efforts of the terrorist toward the victim. After captivity it is important to respond toward the victims of terror by continually reassuring them that their behavior during captivity was fully acceptable; that as long as they are alive, they did the right thing. Nine references are appended.