2019 Volume 60 Issue 3 Pages 52-62
This research seeks to clarify the challenges overcome by the hikikomori, or individuals suffering from acute social withdrawal, from their own perspective. In the 2017 fiscal year, the researcher conducted a survey of hikikomori who use the 68 hikikomori community support centers across Japan and performed analysis of variance 4(ANOVA 4) as the method of analysis. As a result, the following 12 features were established: fear of interacting with others, anxiety in leaving one’s house or room, difficulty in mustering the willpower to do something, recollection of distressing past events, fear of others’ gazes, fear of boarding vehicles (such as trains), difficulty in accepting others’ values, lack of awareness of what is happening within oneself, deterioration of the parent-child relationship, despondency and suffering over one’s illness and/or disabilities, feeling of inferiority over one’s school absenteeism and/or social withdrawal experiences, and lack of self-confidence. This study indicates that these experiences comprise a portion of the challenges that hikikomori have overcome.
