I certainly agree with you, K, that the syndrome is absolutely real with respect to the hapless victims of kidnapping who eventually feel compelled to "join up" with, or even "love", their captors. The phenomenon is not all that surprising given that when such victims are helplessly and hopelessly overwhelmed by the awesome power being exerted over them, their survival instinct kicks in and searches for any possible way out.
A not illogical strategy emerges and is implemented. The victim tries to calm, placate, and cajole her captor by mentally "stepping outside of herself" (a defense mechanism employed to shield one’s self from severe psychological trauma) and by assuming a "fake" identity with a new, uncharacteristic personality which projects submission, compassion, understanding, warmth, admiration, and even love for her captor, all in a desperate attempt to convince him that she truly cares about him and his cause and that, therefore, he should consider her to be a "person" rather than an "object", care about her, and spare her life.
As may happen in all types of abuse cases, the victim’s "make believe" world becomes real to her out of necessity; in order to survive the ordeal. So much is at stake (the victim’s life) that the mind automatically determines that any risk is worth taking. The condition is perhaps the saddest psychological response to grave threat that exists in man; I think you know me well enough by now to have noticed that the only time I become truly angry is when I see a more powerful person abuse the human dignity of a weaker person. I have never and just can’t stand by and let that happen. Especially when it comes to kids. I am getting angry/almost crying just thinking about it.
Most disturbing to me about all this is that cavalier morons (husbands, fathers of perpetrators, cops, etc.) perpetuate the deranged idea that "she was asking for it". They spit, "She must have done something to provoke her abduction/rape/battering/etc. It must be her fault".
I wrote a paper in law school about Battered Woman Syndrome. The cases I focused on were those in which the battered wife ended up killing her husband. Back when I was studying law, in the mid-eighties, the syndrome was just starting to be used as a defense for these poor women being tried for murder. Older, imbecilic judges wouldn’t buy it at first, but eventually, it took root.
At these trials, the question was whether the syndrome could serve as a basis for finding that the murder was either "justified" (no wrongdoing) or "excusable" (the murder was wrong, but, because of the circumstances, the defendant should be excused for the act), one of which must exist in order to find the defendant not guilty because the killing was in self-defense. A plea of not guilty based on self-defense requires that the defendant truly believed that she was "trapped" in the relationship because her husband had vowed to hunt her down and kill her (or, in the really sick cases) their kids) and so being held hostage in imminent danger of being killed by her husband. She had to have sincerely, reasonably believed that the next time he battered her, she surely would be killed, and so she, in self-defense, felt that she had to beat him to the punch in order to survive. Proof of such a belief was submitted in the form of her detailed testimony (and that of any witnesses willing to testify on her behalf - rarely) about the long, terrible history of violence, the escalation of injuries and time went on, and the increasingly vehement, insane threats by the husband.
In the first case of this kind, (tried before a female judge - thank goodness) the battered wife was acquitted.
Now would you please go to a movie or something so I can work on my response to the broca thread!? :-*
V
