Hikikomori Beyond Japan: Culture-Bound Syndrome or International Phenomenon?

Hikikomori, a condition of prolonged and severe social withdrawal centred on the home, became widely recognised in Japan in the late 1990s and has often been framed as a culture-bound syndrome intelligible only within the specific cultural matrix of Japanese society. This thesis examines whether that framing remains empirically and theoretically defensible in light of evidence that has accumulated from outside Japan over the past two decades. After establishing the clinical definition, epidemiology, and differential diagnostic boundaries of hikikomori, the thesis analyses the cultural, structural, familial, and psychological conditions through which the condition became visible and entrenched in Japan, including the shame dynamics of haji, the dependency-enabling logic of amae, the destabilisation of postwar employment pathways, and the psychological mechanisms of attachment insecurity, identity diffusion, amotivation, and ego-syntonic withdrawal. It then examines evidence from Europe, the United States, East Asia, and Turkey, showing that recognisable hikikomori-like cases emerge across these contexts through structurally analogous but culturally distinct pathways. The thesis argues that hikikomori is best understood not as a strictly culture-bound syndrome, nor as a culturally neutral universal disorder, but as a transcultural phenomenon with culturally specific expressions. Culture functions as a shaper and amplifier of the condition rather than as its sole origin. The implications of this conclusion for clinical recognition, classification, and future cross-cultural research are discussed.