Tag: psychic withdrawal

Psychic Withdrawal and Maladaptive Daydreaming in Adolescents and Young Adults

Fiorenzo Ranieri

Psychic withdrawal represents one of the most enigmatic and potentially fruitful experiences of adolescent development. It is the movement through which the mind retreats from the external world to inhabit an inner elsewhere, populated by images, fantasies, and scenarios that take on the function of refuge, protection, or compensation. It is within this threshold between the internal and external worlds, between thought and action, that the phenomenon of maladaptive daydreaming can be situated: a form of intense and immersive imaginative activity which, when it loses its symbolic and relational function, may become a genuine psychic withdrawal.

From Social Withdrawal to Psychic Withdrawal

Over recent decades, the phenomenon of hikikomori has drawn attention to visible social withdrawal: young people who physically isolate themselves, shutting themselves in their rooms and discontinuing relationships and activities. However, observable withdrawal is often the final stage of a deeper, internal, and invisible process: a psychic withdrawal that precedes and underlies behavioural withdrawal.

The individual progressively distances himself or herself from shared experience, taking refuge in a self-constructed mental world in which a sense of control and identity coherence can be maintained. Without this imaginative regression, no enduring social withdrawal would be possible: the body can isolate itself only after the mind has already withdrawn.

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Two Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Hikikomori: The Theses of Mohr and Urani

Fiorenzo Ranieri

Recently, I came across two interesting doctoral theses submitted at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust: Shut in and cut off? by Petra A. M. Mohr (2019) and Socially withdrawn young people by Margherita Urani (2023). Both studies offer an in-depth psychoanalytic perspective on voluntary self-seclusion, drawing on interviews with child and adolescent psychotherapists who have worked directly with hikikomori patients. The two theses provide a rich source of information about patients’ behaviours, experiences and mental processes. The therapists interviewed describe their clinical experiences, the patients’ subjective states, and the complex countertransference dynamics that emerge in therapeutic work.

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Hikikomori – Il re escluso [The Excluded King]

Fiorenzo Ranieri

The human condition of adolescents and young adults, children and adults experiencing psychic and social withdrawal — the condition of hikikomori — has been portrayed by various artists. To mention just a couple of examples that I have personally appreciated, there is the play Hikikomori by Holger Schober, directed by Vincenzo Picone, and the fine novel Us by my friend and colleague Michele Cocchi, who sadly passed away recently, published by Fandango in 2020. Continue reading Hikikomori – Il re escluso [The Excluded King]

Seeking the origins of psychic and social withdrawals

Fiorenzo Ranieri

The article “Seeking the origins of psychic and social withdrawals: warning signs in the observations of young children”, co-authored with Miriam Monticelli, has been published in Infant Observation – International Journal of Infant Observation and Its Applications.

Read the full article:

(https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698036.2023.2290290 ).

“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

Contact the authors for further information