Hikikomori is coming to Sweden
This reference is used to annotate "I would never send my kids to school" (2017) by Piotr Wozniak
Hikikomori is the term born in Japan. However, the concept of a child withdrawing from society is pretty international. It occurs in all societies where individual child freedoms are limited. If the pressure of school is too much to bear, school refusal follows and that leads to hikikomori. If the pressures to get a job, to be useful, or to be smart is too much to bear, we get an adult hikikomori, he could live with his mom at the age of 50.
Dr Allen Frances writes in HuffPost:
There may now be more than a million hikikomori in Japan, many of whom are in their 20s, 30s, or 40s. The government wonders what will happen in coming decades as their parents age and begin to die. Who will care for this army of hermits completely unable and unwilling to care for themselves?
A critic may say that moms are enablers! Without moms, hikikomori would need to face the world or die of starvation. However, mom's love is blind. Moms understand the tragedy of the situations, but cannot possibly face the suffering their help would entice. If a mom would not feed hikikomori, she would have to see him starve in pain. This only makes things worse.
To understand the concept of hikikomori, we need to understand how concept networks undergo adaptation. Hikikomori is born from impossible adaptational demands. If the curve is too steep, it cannot be climbed. Natural adaptation on demand is what the brain excels in. That adaptation is destroyed by coercive schooling. If the contrast between harsh reality and home comforts is large enough, the adaptation to self at home is inevitable.
Hikikomori arrived in Sweden, but psychologist immediately rush to "treat" the "problem" in the same old way inconsistent with how the brain works. Pushing the kid back to school is a form of bridging a wrong cliff. Sweden treats "home sitting" with school. Ia Sundberg Lax says:
The goal is to help get the person back to school as soon as possible before the withdrawal becomes a deeply ingrained behavior. You have to learn the psychological factors, social context, and educational issues involved in starting the school refusal and what makes it continue
If someone refuses to live in a bog, pushing him in there gradually will work indeed. It will work better than shouts and threats "Get in the bog". But the right approach is to let people live where they want.
"Behavioral therapy" involves a set of standard tools of pacifying children: "waking up at the right time", "normal use of the internet", "teaching skills to cope with anxiety", "helping parents", "teaching social skills", "encouraging peer contact", "dealing with family conflict". This is all wrong (see dozens of places at SuperMemo Guru when details are discussed). Sleep and internet use should be natural and on demand. All coping and socialization should be a result of natural adaptation process, which is usually ruined by lack of acceptance from the environment. This is not therapy to help. It is a "therapy" to push you back into the "right place" in society.
What is worse, part of the program seems to be based on trying to make the kid "understand" that he is a problem, while the real problem is the way society treats him. Compulsory schooling is so well indoctrinated as a "good thing" that it becomes a huge elephant in the middle of the room that nobody seems to notice:
A child who doesn't attend school ruins the daily life of the family and fills it with conflict and nagging about school
The best way to treat hikikomori is to stop the ostracism, and allow of a natural adaptation to reality without distortive external pressures. If the adaptation involves computer gaming or art, there are many options in the modern world to adapt, be productive, be helpful, and be contented. The recovery does not need to go via school.
Quoted excerpts come from the following reference:
Title: Preventing and Treating School Refusal and Severe Social Withdrawal
Author: Allen Frances, M.D., HuffPost Contributor
Date: 2015
Link: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/preventing-and-treating-s_b_7046156