Stockholm Syndrome Case Studies

While the conditions of Mrs. Rowlandson’s captivity could cause Stockholm syndrome, the symptoms displayed favor a diagnosis of PTSD. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry gives four conditions as a definition for Stockholm Syndrome: (I). A perceived threat to one’s physical or psychological survival at the hands of an abuser(s); (II). Perceived small kindnesses from the abuser to the victim; (III). Isolation from perspectives other than those of the abuser; and (IV). The inescapability of the situation.”

An event in someone’s early childhood, like a tornado, can cause people to be irrationally scared of thunderstorms for the rest of their lives. Licensed Professional Counselor Sonya Richardson-Thomas brings this topic up in her lectures when she talks about the amygdala and fear. She talks about how this is true not only in people’s early childhood but at any point in their lives. When the men in Alpha Company witness or cause death they tend to act strangely in the future, even the presence of war in their lives causes them to act and think irrationally. In the book, “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien the authors use of different point of views, and detailed imagery to show that emotional baggage people acquire over the course of their

Van der Kolk (1987) notes that human responses to trauma are relatively constant across various types of traumatic stimuli, where individuals have poor tolerance to arousal stimuli and may experience social and emotional withdrawal. These changes in the body’s arousal and perception prevent the continuance of “normal” life, and require help.

The repetition of these traumatic events and the stress caused by these events can manifest itself in physiological and psychological disorders which, over the course of the 20th century have changed names and

Phillis Wheatley was a slave from West Africa who was kidnapped by human traffickers and brought to Boston at the young age of seven. Later she became the servant of Susanna Wheatley. Being a house slave meant that Wheatley was exposed to western ideology like the bible which caused her to leave paganism and become a born again Christian. Phillis truly did believe that the bible was a guide for life like the revolutionaries did. It could reasoned that she could have chronic Stockholm syndrome because she says “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train”( Wheatly,55) though her race are the evil seeds of Cain, the first murderer in bible. She thought black people could be saved if they believe in

This documentary caught my attention right from the opening lines. People, in general, do not like to admit when they are wrong, so when the narrator began by claiming that the entire set of beliefs he had grown up with and lived his life by were wrong and “untrue” it made me stop and consider how that would affect a person. To have your entire way of thinking be proven invalid would be an unsettling situation to put it simply. I could not begin to imagine how that would feel, but I tried to keep this thought in mind as I continued with the rest of the documentary as it explored complex ideas involving education, employment, and obedience.

My whole life, I had always thought that people reacted the same way I did in stressful situations, and the people around me experienced emotions and thoughts the same way. The realization that I overreacted and suffered immensely because of it made me feel isolated and seemed daunting, as if I would never understand or be able to fight the feeling of hopelessness that overwhelmed my system.

The idea of serial killers and the role they play in our lives has fascinated people since the cases of Jack the Ripper and H.H. Holmes, although serial murderers existed before them. The infamous and mysterious complexities of these cases have puzzled and terrified people for over a century. Perhaps due to the deviant and taboo nature of serial killings, people in our society and others have tried to attribute many reasons for why they occur. In this search for answers, one major scope has been widely left out of the research: the sociological imagination. It is through this method of understanding that I will attempt to explain the development of serial killers and apply theories that explain the frequency of serial killings in our society.

The normal reaction to feelings of helplessness and vulnerability is often a need to regain control–

I have adapted to extreme circumstances and am told to treat it as baseline. I carry this fear close to my heart, rooted into my bones, and I do so to keep myself unharmed.2”

Hanna was referred by her GP, because she has been experiencing some anxiety difficulties. Client reports that she began to have anxiety five or six years ago. Reportedly, she recently moved out of her parents’ home and this may have caused the anxiety to escalate. This is the first time client has moved away from her parents.

Annie states that the Agoraphobia is a result of her overthinking how people view her. Throughout the interview, Annie often demonstrates how she thinks others view her—“why did she just run out” or “she is crazy”. During the interview, it becomes clear that Annie is mainly afraid of judgment by other people.

Have you ever had a colonoscopy or endoscopy – where they take a camera and look through your mouth down into your stomach; or a camera that goes in your rectum that looks through your bowel and intestines?

According to Freud, there are three kinds of anxiety – reality, moral and neurotic. Reality anxiety is experienced when there is an actual danger coming from the external world. Moral anxiety arises when there is a conflict between one’s behavior and what the superego is demanding one to do. Finally, neurotic anxiety is felt when the ego feels incapable of controlling the id and the urges hiding in it. The tools people use to get rid of anxiety is what psychoanalysts call “Defense Mechanisms” (Schultz and Schultz, 2009). Defense mechanisms are different behavioral patterns, some of them are considered mature (for example humor) and some immature but what is important for this paper is that in psychoanalytic therapy, defense mechanisms are identified and the goal of the therapy is to overcome them and access the unconscious conflicts which are according to the Freudians the root of any mental problem. Moreover, all problems’ origin can be found in childhood - most often in a faulty relationship with one of the primary caregivers (Hough,

Social anxiety is “a feeling of discomfort, fear, or worry that is centered on our interactions with other people and involves a concern with being judged negatively, evaluated, or looked down upon by others” (Social Anxiety Support, 2014). Social anxiety can affect anyone. Individuals with social anxiety tend to prefer to keep to themselves because they are afraid others will judge them negatively and have a hard time interacting socially.