Le Hikikomori entre Idiome culturel et expression actuelle de la souffrance au passage de l'adolescence à l'âge adulte

While the cultural approach is central in the Japanese literature, questions about the existence of comorbidities or about “primary” or “secondary” Hikikomori, point to the value of a psychopathological approach. Despite the refusal to consider Hikikomori as a culture-bound syndrome on account of the presence of similar cases in many other countries, its classification as a cultural idiom can integrate its dual cultural and psychopathological particularities. The role of inhibition, and the confrontation with a demanding and distressing ideal, shape masculinity trying to deal with passivity. Subjects seem to actively choose passivity in a kind of a masochistic logic so as to suffer less than if they were actually undergoing it. Therefore, social withdrawal and confinement in the home could serve as message to those around them, albeit addressed in negative form, an expression of distress linked to the difficulties in the transition from adolescence to adulthood.