Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-6tpvb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-17T04:36:31.370Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hikikomori: The Japanese Cabinet Office's 2016 Survey of Acute Social Withdrawal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Nicolas Tajan ,
Hamasaki Yukiko  and
Nancy Pionnié-Dax
Nicolas Tajan
Affiliation:
Kyoto University Institute for Research in Humanities, Yoshidahonmachi, Sakyo-ku, 605-8501 Kyoto, Japan
Hamasaki Yukiko
Affiliation:
Kyoto Women's University, Faculty for the Study of Contemporary Society, 35, Kitahiyoshi-cho, Imakumano, Higashiyama-ku, 605-8501 Kyoto, Japan
Nancy Pionnié-Dax
Affiliation:
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, EPS ERASME, 143 avenue Armand Guillebaud, 92160 Antony, France
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In September 2016, the Cabinet Office of Japan published the results of an epidemiological survey focusing on acute social withdrawal (hikikomori). This article summarizes and assesses the major features of the survey. It aims at facilitating research and international exchanges on a mental health and social problem affecting at least 541,000 people in Japan that seems to have spread to industrialized societies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 5 , March 2017 , e2
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2017

References

Arnett, Jeffrey, Žukauskienė, Rita, Sugimura, Kazumi. 2014. “The new life stage of emerging adulthood at ages 18–29 years: implications for mental health.” Lancet Psychiatry 2014 (1): 569–576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borovoy, Amy. 2008. “Japan's Hidden Youths: Mainstreaming the Emotionally Distressed in Japan.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 32: 52–56.
Futagami, Nōki, and Asano, Shirō. 2006. “The ‘Integrated Community’: Toward the Transformation of the Hikikomori Archipelago Japan. A Dialogue between Asano Shirō and Futagami Nōki (translation John Junkerman).” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.Google Scholar
Yukiko, Hamasaki 2015. Appearance of Caseness - Social withdrawal and the development of schizophrenia, Japanese Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 44 (5): 655–662.Google Scholar
Kaneko, Sachiko. 2006. “Japan's ‘Socially Withdrawn Youths’ and Time Constraints in Japanese Society: Management and Conceptualization of Time in a Support Group for Hikikomori.” Time & Society 15 (2/3): 233–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kato, T. A., Teo, A. R., Tateno, M., Watabe, M., Kubo, H. and Kanba, S. (2017), Can Pokémon GO rescue shut-ins (hikikomori) from their isolated world? Psychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences, 71: 75–76. doi:10.1111/pcn.12481.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kondo, Naoji, Sakai, Motohiro, Kuroda, Yasukazu, Kiyota, Yoshikazu, Kitabata, Yuji, and Kurosawa, Mie. 2013. “General Condition of Hikikomori (prolonged Social Withdrawal) in Japan: Psychiatric Diagnosis and Outcome in Mental Healths Welfare Centres.” International Journal of Social Psychiatry.” 67: 193–202.Google Scholar
Kōsei rōdō shō (Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare). 2001. Jūdai/nijūdai wo chūshin toshita shakaiteki hikikomori wo meguru chiiki seishin hoken katsudō no gaidorain 十代二十代を中心とした社会的ひきこもりをめぐるちいき精神保健活動のガイドライン (Guidelines for Intervention in Local Mental Health Activities for ‘Shakaiteki Hikikomori’, Mainly among those 10-years-old and over up to their 20s).Google Scholar
Kōsei rōdō shō. 2003. Jūdai/nijūdai wo chūshin toshita shakaiteki hikikomori wo meguru chiiki-seishin hoken katsudō no gaidorain とした社会的ひきこもりをめぐるちいき精神保 健活動のガイドライン (Guidelines for Intervention in Local Mental Health Activities for ‘Shakaiteki Hikikomori’, Mainly among those 10-years-old and over up to their 20s -Complete Version). Tōkyō: Kokuritsu Seishin/shinkei Centre.Google Scholar
Kōsei rōdō shō. 2010. Hikikomori no hyōka/shien ni kansuru gaidorain ひきこもりの評価ー支援に関 するガイドラン (Guideline for evaluation and assistance of hikikomori).Google Scholar
Li, Tim MH and Wong, Paul WC. 2015. “Youth social withdrawal behavior (hikikomori): A systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies.” Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 49 (7): 595–609. doi:10.1177/0004867415581179.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lock, Margaret. 1995. Encounters with Aging. Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Aaron L., and Toivonen, Tuukka. 2010. “To Discipline or Accommodate ? On the Rehabilitation of Japanese ‘Problem Youth.’” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.Google Scholar
Nihon Naikakufu (Cabinet Office of Japan). 2010. Wakamono no ishiki ni kansuru chōsa -Hikikomori ni kansuru jittai chōsa 若者 の意識に関する調査・ひきこもりに関する実態 調査 (Survey on youth consciousness - Survey on hikikomori).Google Scholar
Nihon Naikakufu (Cabinet Office of Japan). 2016. Wakamono no seikatsu ni kansuru chōsa hōkokusho 若者の生活に関する調査 報 告書 (Survey report on youth's life).Google Scholar
Ogino, Tatsushi. 2004. “Managing Categorization and Social Withdrawal in Japan: Rehabilitation Process in a Private Support Group for Hikikomorians.” International Journal of Japanese Sociology (13): 120–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryder Andrew, G, Sunohara, Momoka, and Kirmayer, Lawrence J. 2015. “Culture and personality disorder: from a fragmented literature to a contextually grounded alternative.” Current Opinion in Psychiatry 28 (1): 40–5.Google ScholarPubMed
Saitō, Tamaki. 1998. Shakaiteki hikikomori — owaranai shishunki 社会的ひきこもり―終わら ない思春期. Tōkyō: PHP Shinsho.Google Scholar
Saitō, Tamaki. 2013. Hikikomori: Adolescence without End (American translation of Shakaiteki hikikomori — owaranai shishunki). Minnesota University Press.Google Scholar
Tajan, Nicolas. 2015a. “Adolescents' School Non-Attendance and the Spread of Psychological Counselling in Japan.” Asia Pacific Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy 6(1/2): 58–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajan, Nicolas 2015b. Social Withdrawal and Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Review of Hikikomori, Neuropsychiatrie de l'Enfance et de l'Adolescence, 63 (5): 324–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajan, Nicolas 2015c. Japanese post-modern social renouncers: An exploratory study of the narratives of Hikikomori subjects, Subjectivity 8: 283–304 (September 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tateno, Masaru, Tae, Woo Park, Kato, Takahiro, Umene-Nakano, Wakako, and Saito, Toshikazu. 2012. “Hikikomori as a Possible Clinical Term in Psychiatry.” BMC Psychiatry (12):169.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Teo, Alan R., and Gaw, Albert R. 2010. “Hikikomori, a Japanese Culture-Bound Syndrome of Social Withdrawal? A Proposal for DSM-5.” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 198 (6): 444–449.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Toivonen, Tuukka. 2008. “Introducing the Youth Independence Camp. How a New Social Policy Is Reconfiguring the Public-Private Boundaries of Social Provision in Japan.” Sociologos (32): 42–57.Google Scholar
Kagehiro, Toyama 2016. 大都市における子育て 家族の社会的孤立要因: SSP2015 を用いた地域 信頼度の分析より The isolation of child-rearing families in urban area: From the analysis of trust in local communities using SSP2015, 北 海道大学大学院文学研究科研究論集 Research Journal of Graduate Students of Letters, 16: 209–230.Google Scholar