Hikikomori: Japanese Asperger's?

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Read this article today called "Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?".

A lot of it seemed consistent with Asperger's. What say ye?

Linky: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23182523

Sounds like avoidant personality disorder. I suppose we aspies are very likely to develop that, hence the connection.

Didn't read the article...just your quote.

Agoraphobia?

Doesn't sound like ASD to me.

ASD would have been noticed earlier than teenage years when the hikikomori withdrawal starts.

Articles didn't describe what hikikomori were like before withdrawal, so they were likely normal.

I read this article, and what is being described is similar to AS, but not AS. The reason I say this is that AS is something we're born with, have all our lives, and then die with. This phenomenon has something to do with Japanese society. A similar phenomenon happened in the US and Britain.

Years ago I read an article stating the same thing happened here in the US and in Britain in the nineteenth century, with many women in particular refusing to socialize, or leave their houses, and very suddenly. And many of them just as suddenly became social again.

I've been sitting here scratching my head trying to recall names, but only one comes to mind: The poet Emily Dickinson:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson

Please note that the onset of her withdrawal from society came on very quickly, though the article does state she sometimes suffered from "melancholy" in her younger years. Again, this was an alarmingly common phenomenon in her time, particularly with young women. I just wish I could recall more names, since some of them are well-known even today.

exactly, it is a mixture of cultural and puberty effects,not a developmental disorder [love seeing the kitty whenever are posting by the way,he/she coud make a post about the world ending seem awesome].

From my book on schizophrenia (in Japanese), my translation:

So, I don't think it's universal among the hikikomori, but I think you can definitely find cases like Asperger's, depression, schizophrenia, etc., hidden among the hikikomori, as my Japanese source says.

a failure of parents, a failure of the village.

Are there any peer-reviewed articles on the prevalence of AS in the population? Last time I checked on this matter, there weren't.

Actually, I was just reading the Wikipedia article on hikikomori, and it said that when hikikomori were tested, between 30-40% tested on the spectrum. The article also said that some psychologists think that the hikikomori phenomenon may be a form of PTSD, brought on by the intense demands of Japan's educational system. At age 15 each Japanese schoolchild is put through a rigorous series of exams that determine what university they will attend and what subjects they will study once there, it's possible that failure or perceived failure at these exams may bring it on. Failure is taken deadly seriously by Japanese, and that is not a pun-in feudal Japan, a great failure was a reason for suicide, and often suicide was even expected. Hikikomori may be committing "living suicide"-too weak to go through and kill themselves, they instead lock themselves away. Some aspects of AS can resemble hikikomori, but hikikomori is something unique to Japan.

Pezar, the problem with the PTSD theory is that Japanese education has always been rigorous, but hikiomori is only about twenty years old, at least as a widespread phenomenon. In fact, I've read Japanese education is actually becoming slightly less rigorous.

I would suspect there is some connection here with a widespread resurgence of asexuality among young people who aren't recluses, whereas they no longer want to get married, have relationships, or even have sex.

I would further suspect that some of these problems are caused by the Japanese recession, which has been going on since the early nineties. I recently read that the Nikkei is still down eighty percent from its highs in the late eighties. It is also the case that there is now more unemployment, and lifetime employment can no longer be taken for granted the way it was in the past. The hikikomori article in Wikipedia confirms my suspicions, as it says this phenomenon is about twenty years old.

This phenomenon is more sociological than psychological, though undoubtedly aspies figure prominently in it, as we always tend to be on a society's margins.

That BBC article said that hikikomori are starting to show up in Europe, especially southern Europe, where the pain of the European economic depression is felt most acutely. Japan's depression, which has been ongoing for a quarter century, has pretty much ripped their society to shreds from what it was before. No more lifetime employment. No more manufacturing jobs. Homelessness was unknown in Japan in 1989, today there are bums living in subway stations. The BBC mentions "freeter" and "NEET", basically underemployed and unemployed in American parlance. Japanese youth have zero reason to adopt a rigorous academic schedule, why should they if all they have to look forward to is a clerk job?

Asexuality is a serious problem in Japan, the Japanese govt is offering fat cash rewards to couples who produce two children, with rewards increasing with number of babies. Russia is doing the same thing. I can see a future where even Americans will be forced to swallow their hatred of "welfare queens" in order to prevent a population implosion. Japan is in serious trouble, it's only through the famous Japanese stoicism that their society hasn't come apart already. In Europe and America, society is already starting to fray. In America, many teens have given up face-to-face socializing in favor of interacting via electronics. It's only a small step from that to an American hikikomori class. Hikikomori are showing up in Italy, according to that article.

Pezar it sounds as if we agree totally then. I'm not sure how old you were, but back in the eighties, there was good reason to be concerned that Japan and Germany were taking over the entire world. "Made in Japan" was as ubiquitous as "Made in China" is now. Then, very quickly it all came apart, and hasn't been the same since.

I'd have to double-check the figures, but the last numbers I saw indicate that the Japanese have the lowest birth rates in the world--so low that if numbers aren't brought up, in the next thirty years the population there will be half of what it is now. I saw another article stating that there are now more adult diapers being sold than the kind put on babies.

You are also right that low birth rates and other issues in the West are having the same effects, especially on Western birth rates. Actually, the US birthrate is just slightly below the replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman, but in part of Europe they are almost as low as they are in Japan.

And, again, something similar to this phenomenon occurred in the 19C in Europe and America, though it's been so long that I'm having problems remembering details, as per my original post.

Interesting conversation!

the combo of demographic and economic trends looks to me, to point to either a slow economic collapse [not enough educated workerbees], or some kind of economic authoritarian regime leavened with "bread and circuses."

I was in my teens. Lots of angst that Japan would soon no longer need the US. Then, their economy collapsed. Just before Japan's economy blew up, billionaire Japanese were snapping up US real estate as fast as they could. Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach Golf Course were probably the best known purchases. Americans were scared that the Japanese were literally buying up the country, and that they would start behaving like the imperial conquerors they once were.

The same pattern is playing out with China today. China's economy is in a BAD bubble, Chinese are buying up US real estate, and Made in China is everywhere. The cracks are starting to show in China's economy-they are having a severe money crisis, with the govt shutting down online banking for a while, by fiat. People panicked. Same fears on the part of Americans. China's one-child policy has created such a surplus of males that rape is a severe crisis, with women dressing as men, complete with artificial "hairy legs", to deter rape.

The stakes are MUCH higher for China-their govt keeps control via force of arms, China is a very heterogeneous society with thousands of different languages and ethnic groups. China has been at war internally for most of its 5,000 year history. Once THEY blow up, the consequences could be cataclysmic. Advanced technologies sold off to the highest bidder. Loose nukes. A civil war unlike anything the world has ever seen. 30 years from now, America could be settling Chinese "nuclear refugees", fleeing a nuclear civil war, in California. And don't forget that massive use of nukes in a Chinese civil war would paint a radiation bullseye on the American west coast.

When Europe was the world's factory, from the latter part of the 18C through the latter part of the 19C, they were the world's major power. When the US began assuming that role, we became the world's powerhouse. And when the Japanese made just about everything, between the 1960's and 1980's, they were on their way too. What I'm getting at is that as with Western countries, when "made in Japan" quit being ubiquitous, they began to collapse, the same as Western countries.

Wealth is created when a country can take a handful of stuff from the ground and use it to produce things people want to buy. And wealth is power. When a country quits doing this, their people suffer. As Auntblabby alluded to, its replacement is the welfare state, along with chronic debt, neither of which are healthy or sustainable.

I think things won't get better in any of the aforementioned countries until the religion of free trade is dethroned, and jobs are brought back. The terrible situation we're in now exacts more than an economic toll; it is also psychologically, sociologically, and spiritually devastating. It explains why aspies, as well as NT's are having so many problems finding any job, much less one that pays a living wage.