Nils Johan Artur Bejerot (September 21, 1921 – November 29, 1988) was a Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist best known for his work on drug abuse and for coining the phrase Stockholm syndrome.

At the age of 15, Bejerot was found to have bleeding in the lungs due to tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium for a total of three years.

[2] On his first vacation he met English nurse Carol Maurice in the 320 km railway between Samac and Sarajevo in then-Yugoslavia, and they later married.

In 1954, while serving as deputy social medical officer at the Child and Youth Welfare Board of the City of Stockholm, Bejerot became, by coincidence, the first to diagnose and report a case of juvenile intravenous drug abuse by any public authority in Europe.

In 1963, Bejerot studied epidemiology and medical statistics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, on a grant from the World Health Organization.

[3] In 1973, he served as a psychiatric advisor during the Norrmalmstorg robbery, and coined the term Stockholm syndrome to refer to the way in which the hostages apparently become grateful to the hostage-takers and critical against the police's handling of the situation.

[5] In 1979 Bejerot received an honorary title of professor, an honor that the Swedish government usually awards to only a few people a year.

[7] For many years he held lectures at ‘’Polishögskolan’’ (The Swedish Police College) about drug abuse, mental problems and negotiation skills.

[2] However, Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech in 1956 at the 20th Party Congress led Bejerot to question the whole communist system; the illusion of the glorious future of communism was definitely shattered when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, causing Bejerot to quit all activities in politics and focus on the study of medicine.

In 1965, Bejerot started to engage in the Swedish debate on drug abuse, encouraging tough action against the new and rapidly growing problem.

[15][16] In 1972, Bejerots' reports were used as one of the reasons for increasing the maximum penalty for grave drug offences in Sweden to 10 years in prison.

His demand for zero tolerance[Note 1] as a drug policy was for a long time seen as extreme, but during the late 1970s opinion changed.

Bejerot did not accept unemployment and poor private economy as explanations for increased use of illegal drugs.

[24] He compared addiction with a very deep love, writing that addiction is "an emotional fixation (sentiment) acquired through learning, which intermittently or continually expresses itself in purposeful, stereotyped behavior with the character and force of a natural drive, aiming at a specific pleasure or the avoidance of a specific discomfort.