Why People Fall In Love with Their Kidnappers?

Abuse, abuse, abuse and Love

Dr. Psychology
5 min readJul 23, 2022

Remember how in a famous Netflix series Money Heist, a bank employee falls in love with one of the kidnappers Denver? We all saw how romantic it was. But why love your kidnapper, when there is a world full of people? As taboo as it sounds, this happens to almost 8% of the people. Well, this weird phenomena is called the Stockholm Syndrome. Trust me it’s weirder than it seems.

Esther Acebo aka Stockholm from Money Heist. Picture from Wikimedia commons
Esther Acebo aka Stockholm from Money Heist. Picture from Wikimedia commons

First, it was discovered in 1973 in a city called Stockholm in Sweden when a similar money heist situation occurred in a bank in Stockholm. 4 bank employees were held hostage by robbers in a bank’s vault and the negotiations on the ransom started. The robbers demanded 3 million Swedish Krona, a car full tank, and a hostage to flee securely. This whole crime was being aired on television across the world. All their demands were fulfilled except the demand of taking a hostage with them although one of the hostages agreed to go with the robbers.

Finally, after 130 hours — 5 days, when police got a hold of the situation, they were surprised to see the hostages hugging, kissing, and weeping with the kidnappers on their arrest. This was the first time when such an incident caught the world’s attention. However, many similar incidents were noted where both male and female hostages actually started…

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Dr. Psychology

Set out with the goal of raising awareness and providing information about MENTAL HEALTH, SANE PARENTING, and PSYCHOLOGY.