In 1973 a gang of bank robbers held up the Kreditbanken (Credit Bank) in Stockholm, Sweden. The police interrupted their heist, but the bank robbers proceeded to hold a number of bank employees hostage for six long days. When at last they were rescued these kidnap victims, who had been terrorized and abused by their captors, stunned the authorities by demonstrating considerable emotional attachment to their victimizers. Some of the victims even publically defended the very ones who had held them at gun point and threatened their lives.

You know what we call this phenomenon. You may not know that it was a Swedish psychiatrist/criminologist by the name of Nils Bejerot who dubbed this bizarre behavior with its sticky name. But you know the name of the syndrome: it’s called . . . the “Stockho…