Hikikomori

Hikikomori (ひきこもり or 引き篭り lit. "pulling away, being confined," i.e.. "acute social withdrawal") is a Japanese term to refer to the phenomenon of reclusive adolescents and young adults who have chosen to withdraw from social life — often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement due to various personal and social factors in their lives.

Related Topics:
Reclusive - Adolescents - Isolation

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The term "hikikomori" refers to both the sociological phenomenon in general, such as the hikikomori issue, as well as those individuals who display behaviors considered within the boundaries of the social label as in Hiroshi is a hikikomori. As the word 'hikikomori' is taken directly from the Japanese language, it is often used for both the singular and plural form in English without modification: I.E. a hikikomori, those hikikomori, the hikikomori phenomenon.

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While there are mild and extreme degrees, the Japanese Ministry of Health defines a hikikomori as an individual who refuses to leave their parent's house, and isolates themselves away from society and family in a single room for at period exceeding six months, though many such youths remain in isolation for a span of years, or in rare cases, decades. Many cases of hikikomori may start out as school refusals, or tohkohkyohi in Japanese. According to estimates by psychologist Saito Tamaki, who first coined the phrase, there may be 1 million hikikomori in Japan, 20 percent of all male adolescents in Japan, or 1 percent of the total Japanese population. Surveys done by the Japanese Ministry of Health as well research done by health care experts suggest a more conservative estimate of 50,000 hikikomori in Japan today. As reclusive youth by their very nature are difficult to poll, the true number of hikikomori most likely falls somewhere between the two extremes.

Related Topics:
School refusal - Saito Tamaki - Japan

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Though acute social withdraw in Japan appears to affect both genders equally, due to differing societal expectations for maturing boys and girls, the most widely reported cases of hikikomori are from Japanese families with male children who seek outside intervention when their son, usually the eldest, refuses to leave the family home.

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