Hikikomori

Hikikomori (hee-kee-koh-MOH-ree) is a growing social behavioral syndrome among Japan's male adolescents. The main symptom of hikikomori is for young men to lock themselves away in their rooms for months, years, or even sometimes decades at a time, with minimal social contact. While there have been a number of important scholarly works on the causes, treatments, and consequences of hikikomori, detailed research of its relation to Japanese health-care policy and its contextualizing culture is lacking. In response, this article examines two critical dimensions of the Japanese phenomenon of hikikomori: (a) the general conceptual policy model developed by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare for understanding and addressing the hikikomori phenomenon, and (b) the interplay between current hikikomori policy and some of the more dominant elements of Japanese culture. On the basis of this examination, the authors conclude that hikikomori may be best seen as an example a rational and intentional response to an otherwise, nonrational, irreconcilable, no-win conflict embedded in a larger set of cultural changes occurring within Japanese society. If so, then Japanese policymakers may be best advised to expand their current reliance on family therapy and accepted Western psychiatric forms as treatment options to include a model of free-agency within a global cultural context.