The microcosm: from a place of refuge to a place of imprisonment.

At the end of the seventies in Japan, some psychiatrists noticed the first manifestations of a particular form of social withdrawal in an ever increasing number of young subjects who left school or work for long periods and could not be diagnosed as depressed or schizophrenic.

These behaviors were initially interpreted as adolescent school and adolescent phobias, considered to be typically Japanese.

He was the director of the psychiatric department of Sofukai Sasaki Hospital in Chiba, Tamaki Saitō, who in 1998 coined the term き こ も り or 引 き 篭 り, hikikomori, merging the words hiku - retiring, securing a safe place - and komoru - that communicates the idea of closing, of something that is hidden, or has disappeared and consequently it is difficult to see; translated it into English with the expression social withdrawal, social withdrawal.

The word means "to stay on the sidelines, to isolate oneself, to withdraw, to close".

Saitō identifies a whole series of symptoms, some basic ones - such as social retirement, school phobia and consequent school retirement - some secondary ones, which develop secondary to social withdrawal, triggering a vicious circle that increases social dysfunction: they are examples agoraphobia or anthropophobia, detected by Saitō with an incidence of 67%. If it is of a high degree, it leads to the manifestation of automisophobia (the fear of getting dirty), a symptom often replaced with the passing of time with persecuting ideas, obsessive ideas and compulsive conduct. We also associate apathy, lethargy, inversion of the circadian rhythm of sleep-wake, depressed mood, thoughts of death, suicide intentions, violent behavior against the family, in particular towards the mother, feelings of self-evaluation and guilt.

In the most severe cases, the hikikomori does not leave his room neither to wash nor to feed himself, asking that the food be left in front of the door to the room, being only awake during the evening to play video games, surf the net or read manga.
They refuse the closeness of other people, they escape from every contact, seeking refuge in a universe in which there is no risk, at least from a relational point of view, in a protected environment to oppose the real world in which they felt they were forced to live.

The outside (in Japanese soto) is felt as a weary, unbearable place; the inside (uchi), his own room, calms the soul and offers a sense of freedom impossible to perceive elsewhere: here you do not feel shame, anger is allowed, you do not feel rejected.

It is a type of behavior that goes much further than other adolescent realities. In addition to the categories analyzed so far, I refer to the so-called NEETs (Not in Employment, Education or Training), an acronym used by some government bodies as a classification term for young celibates who do not study, do not work, do not have specific professional skills and live with the support of the family, who tend to love communication, make use of the internet, mobile, spend most of the day away from home with other young people with whom they share the same philosophy of life, or Freeter (from free, free, and Arbeiter, worker), another condition of Japanese origin that describes young people looking for small jobs part-time jobs, precarious, short, or remain in the family as unemployed, also lovers of multimedia communication.

Both these "classifications" have been widely accepted in Japan and the tendency of local public opinion has long been to unite them with NEETs and Freeters, with the difference that a feeling of disdain and disapproval is perceived towards hikikomori. however, from three disturbing news stories occurred between 1999 and 2000, three murders, performed by boys who had retired from public life before making the crimes.

The central government of Japan has long appeared as disinterested or paralyzed in the face of this social scourge: this has encouraged a multitude of self-styled experts to prescribe any kind of treatment; throughout the country several centers have arisen, many of which are managed by people without clinical preparation and without medical supervision.

Until the beginning of 2004, no specialized journal had published research on the nature of this disease, nor had rigorous field studies of the causes been disseminated.

Only in 2003, given the topicality and social relevance of the problem, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Policies of Japan defined parameters and identified some specific diagnostic criteria in the definition of the status of hikikomori:

• complete withdrawal from the company for a minimum of six months;

• presence of the school and / or work waste;

• at the time of onset there are no diagnoses of schizophrenia, mental retardation or other relevant medical or psychiatric conditions;

• subjects who continue to maintain social relationships outside the family are excluded from those with withdrawal or loss of interest in school or work.

The Ministry also specified that we are not facing a syndrome, that is, a symptomatic picture that may be due to multiple diseases or aetiologies.

Since the phenomenon is basically under-reported, defining a number of people involved is difficult: the official data available speak of more than one million Japanese adolescents and adults (1% of the entire population), of which over 90% of sex male, with preponderance of single children or first-born males, with a social extraction usually medium-high, within the family contexts mostly regular.

There are also other sources, such as the association of HKJ parents, who report a higher number (about 1,600,000 boys). The reliability of these data appears to be limited by several factors: on the one hand the reticence of families to report cases, on the other the lack of knowledge of the phenomenon on the part of society, families and Japanese institutions. We will see better later for what reasons.

The hikikomori can not be confused with the schizophrenic subject, since hallucinations, delusions are missing and, despite the refusal of communication, it is possible to grasp what he desires or what he protests against.

These adolescents live in a prevalent state of disinterest in the world but do not have feelings of inadequacy and fear of criticism, or disapproval (as in avoiding personality disorder, with which many Japanese doctors tend to assimilate the subject hikikomori).

Although the matrix of the phenomenon is undoubtedly Japanese, there are growing testimonies on the spread of behavior in other countries, such as Korea, China, the United States, Spain.
At the Istituto Minotauro of Milan, whose president is prof. Gustavo Pietropolli Charmet, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, professor of Dynamic Psychology at the Bicocca University of Milan, have turned the parents of dozens of boys.

Explain Pietropolli Charmet:

In every historical moment and in every country the young have given vent to their malaise: the hysteria of Freud, the 60s-70s drug addicts, our anorexics.
Hikikomori are children of Japanese culture, but our "self-abuse" share with them more than one aspect.

Continue Antonio Piotti, psychologist and psychotherapist of the Institute:
First of all, narcissistic shame. The gap between their desired and the real is too strong. Also guilty of excessive expectations of parents.

Closing inside a room, locking the door with the idea of not going out any more, building an impassable barrier, an untouchable microcosm that if on one side imprisons you, on the other it frees you and protects you from the Other's gaze, continues confirmation of its failures and its own failures: this is what the hikikomori boys do.

When one closes in, the family, everything else, becomes outside.

This effective closure can be defined as a result of modernity in Japan: in the past, in fact, the room was not closed by doors, but divided by ambiguous border lines; through the use of the tatami and light sliding walls, a sense of permeability was maintained.

Locking a key is a strong act for Japan, showing rude behavior, not entirely understandable.

Until the Second World War there was a room in many Japanese houses, called zashikiro, a dark prison-room, closed from the outside, which was used to lock up a family if it was considered insane by the family, to hide it and isolate it: there he remained there without ever leaving it, for the rest of his life.

Closing inside means self-labeling as crazy?