Think about it.

Adults with well-formed senses of self have come to identify themselves with their captors after extensive periods of captivity.

If Elizabeth Smart was kept under constant surveillance for two months; was verbally bombarded by her captors; was possibly sleep-deprived; was told that her parents and family had abandoned her; was cared for (albeit weirdly) by her captors as a child would be by her parents; was subjected, in short, to methods that religious cults use to convert their marks, why would she not have become a so-called willing captive? She's a child, with a child's vulnerability.

As for the family, I don't see anything odd about the reactions of a group of people who have become, of necessity, quite well-connected to the press. Talking to reporters becomes second nature to people who have reporters hanging around them all the time. Unlike your entertainment and political celebrities, the Smart family didn't seek the attention they got, but used it as a means to gather attention to their overriding objective, the return of Elizabeth. The press were their allies in this. They may well be reluctant to give up that contact. Reporters have become their friends during a period of extreme stress.

The girl and her family face court time as Elizabeth's case comes to trial. Keeping their public faces on is a good idea, because they will need the strength the masks afford and the polish the media-savvy confers. I wouldn't let my guard down yet either if I were one of them. They have a long long way to go before they can even approach normal, vulnerable, everyday life again.

Until someone has travelled that side of weird, it's difficult to judge what constitutes a normal reaction.

Regards--
Mary Anne