Posted by:
Amyjo
(
)
Date: September 19, 2018 07:48PM
Not consciously did she. She may have done so subconsciously. In "Elizabeth Smart, what kept her from escaping besides fear. It's in the public record that she resisted going to the police or identifying herself when they came to her.
"Stockholm syndrome is not brainwashing -- it is a means to endure the violence, a survival technique that the brain uses," says Alan Hilfer, PhD, child psychologist with Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. Brainwashing typically involves withholding food and sleep, he says. Yet Elizabeth appears to be healthy.
He speculates that in Elizabeth Smart's case, she came to identify with her kidnappers. She began to understand and empathize with their reason for kidnapping her -- whatever that reason was.
"It's not a conscious process," Hilfer explains. "It's not that she made a conscious decision that these people were right to kidnap me. It's her mind trying to understand the horror of the situation and justify the reasons for it. It's the mind's way of saying 'This is what I need to do survive. I need to believe there's a reason for this, that these people make sense in their demands.'"
For Elizabeth Smart, this unconscious attachment to her captors could develop to prevent more harm. If she resisted their violence, she likely would get beaten more, for example. But if she says, "I understand, I understand," she won't get hurt as much, he tells WebMD.
This attachment process takes time to develop, Hilfer says. "It's a process of indoctrination. It's why a girl who appears to be a relatively bright, articulate 15-year-old doesn't run to a policeman in a town 15 miles away from her home. It's because there's a level of identification with her aggressors."
https://www.webmd.com/balance/news/20030313/what-kept-elizabeth-smart-from-escaping#1