Seeking the origins of psychic and social withdrawals: warning signs in the observations of young children

ABSTRACT

The authors hypothesize that the child's psychic withdrawal is a potential precursor to the social withdrawal called ‘hikikomori’, a phenomenon frequently observed among adolescents and young adults. They also hypothesize a continuum between psychic withdrawal, social withdrawal and the ‘psychic retreats’ by John Steiner. The authors investigate very early psychic withdrawal and its potential link to the development of social withdrawal. Two observations collected using the Infant Observation and Young Child Observation method provided essential support. Children with premonitory signs of psychic withdrawal observed when they were very young were contacted years later for new observations. The aim was to test the hypothesis that the mental and social functioning mechanisms observed were maintained over time, hindering the children's lines of development. In both cases, it is shown that over the years, precursor signs of mental withdrawal can be traced in the non-spontaneous modes of interaction with peers, with an adaptation to the environment that, especially in a child, seems to rely on the family context and home to avoid contact with others. The article provides clues as to how psychic withdrawal fuels social withdrawal and can contribute to the construction of internal personality organizations that lead to self-reclusion called hikikomori.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychic withdrawal
• social withdrawal
• psychic retreat
• hikikomori
• Infant Observation
• Young Child Observation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank observers Angela Salina and Corinne Giacher for their contribution to data collection and for participating in the discussion group on children's observations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this paper, pseudynms have been used and identifying features have been changed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fiorenzo Ranieri

Fiorenzo Ranieri is a clinical psychologist and a qualified psychoanalytic psychotherapist at the Marta Harris Study Center in Florence. He works in Arezzo (Tuscany) for the National Health Service at the Department of Mental Health, Childhood and Adolescence Unit. He is also Director of the Hospital Psychology Unit in Arezzo. He has been dealing with adolescent and young adult patients in acute social withdrawal (hikikomori) for about 10 years and is the author of some articles and monographs on this topic.

Miriam Monticelli

Miriam Monticelli is a psychotherapist and the directress of postgraduate specialization school in psychoanalytic psychotherapy for children, adolescent and families of Centro Studi Marta Harris in Florence, where she is a teacher and the supervisor of the students who are in training. She also teaches Infant Observation and Young Child Observation in the Observation Courses. She is an expert in the field of clinical work with young children and their families. She has written a few articles on these topics. In the last few years dott.ssa Monticelli has dedicated her time and efforts to the study of psychic retreat linked to social withdrawal (hikikomori), a field in which she intends to continue her research.