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In Reply to: Japanese teenagers posted by juni on September 16, 2003 at 16:11:44:
Yes, I've heard about it--I think through a documentary on the Worldlink channel. My take on it (what little I know) is that it is a culturally-bound expression of a brain disease.
In the U.S., for example, we see many psychiatrically disturbed adolescents who self-mutilate (cut on themselves). This particular behavior is not commonly seen in many other parts of the world. Eating disorders are also seen much more in the developed west than in developing countries. Bulimina & anorexia are pretty much unheard of in Africa. In southeast Asia, there is a condition called "amok" in which the individual temporarily goes completely out of control and attacks people in the community--hence the expression, to "run amok"---we call this temporary insanity or transient psychosis.
You can read about culturally-formed expressions of brain diseases in the American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Psychiatry. There's a whole chapter on this topic. Newer editions of the APA text may contain specific information on hikikimora--like what the underlying brain disease would be called in the U.S. if it weren't expressed by the extreme social withdrawal and parental enabling that occurs in Japanese culture.
