Hikikomori: dal Giappone all’Occidente tra psicopatologia e manifestazione culturale [Hikikomori: from Japan to the West between psychopathology and cultural manifestation]

Hikikomori is a condition of severe social withdrawal in which people shut themselves off from society and stay alone in their homes/rooms for at least six months. The first part of this paper reports on how Hikikomori has been widely conceptualized as a clinical (i.e., psychiatric or psychological) condition. From this point of view, temperament, emotional or familiar factors have been often proposed to explain Hikikomori. The second part of this paper focuses on the thesis that Hikikomori mainly depends on historical-cultural circumstances that have prevailed in the Japanese context, and suggests that it may be best conceptualized as a form of social protest (instead of as a psychopathological condition).