FEATURE-How "Stockholm syndrome" entered public psyche

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I suspect that a good portion of American people are suffering from this malaise right now.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L04652729.htm

STOCKHOLM, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Thirty years ago, a Swedish armed robber stole the world's attention and the hearts of the bank workers he held hostage for six days in a drama that spawned the concept of the "Stockholm Syndrome".

The hostage crisis sucked in a prime minister pressed to win an election, police anxious to get their wages from the raided bank and journalists bored of filming the facade of the royal palace where the king lay on his death bed.

It also led psychologists to identify a phenomenon in which hostages bond with their captors. Despite threats by robber Jan "Janne" Olsson to kill them, the four workers held in the bank vault began to side with him and criticise those trying to rescue them.

The drama, made into a film by public service television to mark the anniversary, began on August 23, 1973, when Olsson walked into a Kreditbanken bank in central Stockholm, wearing sunglasses and an afro wig, and pulled out a machine gun.

Firing it into the air, he shouted in English: "This party has only started!"

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