Joff Bradley: Symptomatology of hikikomori: a philosophical perspective

Organized by the Department of Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences

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Joff Bradley (Teikyo University, Tokio, Japan):
Symptomatology of hikikomori: a philosophical perspective

Abstract

This paper examines the evolving phenomenon of hikikomori, orsocial reclusion, in the digital age, interrogating its personal andsocio-political dimensions through a multidisciplinary lens.Inspired by a recent BBC podcast featuring Will Self—whoreflects on the paradox of seclusion as both an escape and asource of isolation—the study explores how contemporary withdrawal, epitomized by Japan’s hikikomori, might beunderstood not as a voluntary retreat but as a mental condition shaped by pervasive technological mediation and intoxication.Building on Félix Guattari’s clinical and theoretical work, theanalysis traces the multiple semiotic layers operating throughout an individual’s life and critiques how traditional psychiatry overlooks the broader social ecology underlying mental distress. A recent conversation with a Lacanian psychoanalyst further illustrates the limitations of case-specific approaches that neglect the systemic aspects of modern social withdrawal. Finally, the paper questions the continued relevance of Deleuzeand Guattari’s concept of processual schizophrenia in an erawhere digital technologies may instead foster conditions akin toautistic behavior or a new form of “sleepy sickness” (encephalitislethargica). The study also considers the narcissism and ipseityof the self that intimacy with and intoxication by technologies may cultivate. By drawing parallels with the literary explorations of self-exclusion in British writers Harold Pinter and Will Self, the studyargues for a symptomatology that frames contemporary manifestations of addiction, ADHD, and endemic loneliness assignals of a veritable collapse of desire. This transformation, thepaper contends, calls for a metamodelization beyond conventional psychiatric frameworks.