6 Things You Thought Wrong About Introverts

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extroverts, introverts

6 Things You Thought Wrong About Introverts

If common stereotypes have anything to say on the matter, it’s that introverts are socially awkward loners who abhor large crowds and just don’t like people very much. An introvert may not be a particularly friendly or happy person, but hey, at least they’re smarter and more creative than the average extrovert.

Despite comprising an estimated one-third of the general population, introversion may be one of the most frequently misunderstood personality traits. But the silent revolution of introverts — catapulted into the spotlight largely by the work of Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking — is shedding light on the experience of introverts living in a culture that tends to value extroverted qualities like assertiveness and outspokenness over solitude and quiet contemplation.

Much of the problem stems from the lack of a simple distinction between introversion and extroversion — the difference is far more complex than being shy versus outgoing, according to Sophia Dembling, author of The Introvert’s Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World. The introversion/extroversion distinction has its roots in Jungian psychology, which views extroverts as being more naturally oriented towards the outside world, and introverts more focused on their own inner world.

“The description that introverts seem to relate most strongly to is the idea that Jung presented, that introverts are drained of energy by interaction, and gain energy in solitude and quiet, whereas extroverts gain energy in social situations with interaction,” Dembling tells The Huffington Post. “It seems to be most strongly an energy thing –- where you get your energy and what takes it out of you.”

If you’re an introvert, you might be used to feeling misunderstood (many introvert children are criticized for not speaking up at school, and grow up being told to “come out of their shells”) and having your actions (or inaction) misinterpreted. And if you’re an extrovert, there’s a good chance that you have a least a few misconceptions about those mysterious quiet types in your life. Scroll through the list below for six of the most common false assumptions about introverts — and why they’re wrong.

1. All introverts are shy — and all shy people are introverts.

Shyness is so often confused with introversion that the two words are frequently used interchangeably — but in fact, they’re remarkably different traits. As Susan Cain pointed out in a Psychology Today blog, Bill Gates is introverted but not shy: He’s quiet and bookish, but isn’t bothered by what other people think of him.

Whereas introversion, as Dembling explains, is commonly defined as recharging and gaining energy through alone time, shyness has more to do with discomfort and anxiety in situations involving social interaction. Many introverts aren’t shy; they may feel confident and at ease around people, but simply require more alone time to balance out the energy they expend in social situations. Similarly, an extrovert may seek the company of others but feel insecure or uncomfortable in groups.

“The number-one misconception about introversion is that it’s about shyness,” says Dembling. “The best distinction I’ve heard comes from a neuroscientist who studies shyness. He said, ‘Shyness is a behavior -– it’s being fearful in a social situation. Whereas introversion is a motivation. It’s how much you want and need to be in those interactions.’”

2. Introverts don’t like to be around people.

Although introverts do generally need — and enjoy — more solitude than their extroverted counterparts, the idea that introverts are antisocial or don’t want the company of others is completely false. They just tend to enjoy social interaction in a different way than extroverts do.

“There are a lot of negative labels placed on introverts — socially anxious, don’t like people, judgmental (because we sit quietly),” says Dembling. “Introverts may prefer one-on-one interaction … we might enjoy large parties but want to sit and watch the action from the sidelines. Extroverts may interpret this as not wanting to have fun, but this observation is fun for an introvert.”

Introversion shouldn’t be confused with misanthropy — introverts do like people, but they typically favor quality over quantity in their relationships, choosing to focus on creating a smaller circle of close friends rather than a large network of acquaintances.

“I like to say that we may like people more than extroverts because we take the time to get to know them … It’s just a completely different style,” says Dembling.

3. Introverts don’t make good leaders or public speakers.

Many introverts enjoy and excel in roles that involve leading others, speaking publicly, and being in the spotlight. Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi and countless other leaders through history have been classified as introverts. These leaders may also foster a better team environment, as research has shown they might work better in groups than extroverts do. And according to USA Today, roughly four in 10 top executives test as introverts.

Research has found that individuals of both personality types can be well-suited to leadership and sales roles.

“The good news … is that in some sense we are all born to sell and equipped to lead,”writes author Daniel Pink in a Washington Post blog. “And that means a hidden but urgent challenge for organizations of every kind is to shatter the stereotype of who’s an effective leader.”

And when it comes to public speaking, introverts aren’t the shrinking violets they’re often thought to be, and they might actually have the upper hand over extroverts. Because introverts focus on preparing projects and thinking things through thoroughly before acting, they can be excellent speakers, says Dembling. Susan Cain’s charismatically delivered TED talk on the power of introverts, for instance, was one of the fastest TED videos ever to reach one million views — and it’s just one of countless examples.

4. Introverts have more negative personalities.

Because they actually like being alone, introverts are sometimes stereotyped as having more depressive or negative-slanting personalities. This misconception likely stems from the fact that extroverts — who gain their energy from social interaction — might feel sad when they don’t spend enough time with people, Dembling says.

“When extroverts are in an introverted place for too long, spending time alone or being quiet, they can report feeling sad and depressed,” says Dembling. “Because they feel sad when they’re alone, maybe they therefore think we feel sad when we’ve been alone. That misconception is coming from a genuine concern, but it’s more putting their feelings on us.”

Most introverts don’t connect solitude with loneliness, unless it becomes excessive. That being said, although introverts do not innately have more depressive personalities, they do tend to spend more time thinking and analyzing — and if this turns to ruminating, it could potentially lead to depression.

“There’s a definite link between rumination and depression,” says Dembling. “Because introverts do like thinking and being alone, we need to keep ourselves in check.”

5. Introverts are more intellectual or creative than extroverts.

Many of the most celebrated artists and thinkers throughout history — including Albert Einstein, Marcel Proust and Charles Darwin — were thought to be quiet types. Introverts are sometimes touted as being “more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive,” as Jonathan Rauch writes in an Atlantic article, “Caring For Your Introvert.” But before any quiet types climb atop an intellectual high horse, it’s important to note being an introvert doesn’t innately make you a loftier, or more innovative, thinker. Extroverts are, of course, often incredibly intelligent and creative; there’s just a good chance that their best ideas happen while they’re in a more reflective, or introverted, mindset.

“Creativity occurs in an introverted space … but that doesn’t mean we’ve cornered the market on it,” says Dembling. “Without both introverts and extroverts, things wouldn’t get done. We’ve got one person thinking it through and one person going out and slaying the dragon.”

6. It’s easy to tell whether someone is introverted or extroverted.

Many introverts could easily go out to a cocktail party and talk up everyone in the room — and they may enjoy themselves doing it. But at the end of the day, they’ll look forward to restoring their energy by coming home and reading in bed with a cup of tea. Given our culture’s bias towards extroverted personality traits, many introverts have become accustomed to being the wolf in sheep’s clothing — behaving like an extrovert in social situations, and perhaps acting more outspoken and gregarious than they feel on the inside. Or they may enjoy the social interaction and attention, but later crave time alone to recover.

“Most introverts are very good at behaving like extroverts,” says Dembling. “A lot of us are out there behaving as extroverts … but then we have to shut it down. I call it my ‘dog and pony show.’ But then you have to be quiet and regain your energy for the next time. The long I’m out there putting on the show, the longer I need to recuperate.”

“Introverts really do like people and we like socializing,” Dembling says. “We just like it in different ways than extroverts.”

When the Bully Is a Sibling

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abuse, aggression, anxiety, Bullying, Children, Depression, family, Self-esteem, siblings, young people

When the Bully Is a Sibling

Siblings have been bickering and trading blows since the time of Cain and Abel. But the torment and fighting that is often shrugged off as normal sibling rivalry may not always be so benign.

New research suggests that even when there are no physical scars, aggression between siblings can inflict psychological wounds as damaging as the anguish caused by bullies at school or on the playground. The findings offer an unusual look at an area of family life that has rarely been studied, in part because infighting among brothers and sisters is widely considered a harmless rite of passage.

But ordinary skirmishes over the remote or joystick are one thing, experts say, and chronic physical and verbal abuse, particularly when it is directed at one sibling, is another. The new study, which involved thousands of children and adolescents around the country, found that those who were attacked, threatened or intimidated by a sibling had increased levels of depression, anger and anxiety.

Corinna Jenkins Tucker, the lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, said that behaviors among siblings that cross the line into abuse deserve more recognition.

“Historically, the general thinking has been that it’s not a big deal, and sometimes it’s even viewed as being a good thing,” said Dr. Tucker, an associate professor of family studies at the University of New Hampshire. “There appears to be different norms of acceptability. Peer aggression is unacceptable, but it’s not the same for siblings.”

Dr. Tucker said that the growing number of programs and public service announcements aimed at stopping bullying and violence in schools and other settings should include a focus on sibling relationships as well.

“The aggression among siblings should be taken just as seriously as that among peers,” she said.

While normal rivalries with siblings can encourage healthy competition, the line between healthy relations and abuse is crossed when one child is consistently the victim of another and the aggression is intended to cause harm and humiliation, said John V. Caffaro, a clinical psychologist and the author of “Sibling Abuse Trauma.” Parents who fail to intervene, play favorites or give their children labels that sow divisions — like “the smart one” and “the athlete” — can inadvertently encourage conflict.

Nationwide, sibling violence is by far the most common form of family violence, occurring four to five times as frequently as spousal or parental child abuse, Dr. Caffaro said. According to some studies, nearly half of all children have been punched, kicked or bitten by a sibling, and roughly 15 percent have been repeatedly attacked. But even the most severe incidents are underreported because families are loath to acknowledge them, dismissing slaps and punches as horseplay and bullying as boys just being boys, he said.

“Our society tends to minimize child-on-child violence in general,” he added. “We have these ideas that if you’re hurt by a child it’s less injurious than if you’re hurt by an adult, but the data don’t support that.”

In the new report, Dr. Tucker and her colleagues studied 3,600 children using data from the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence, which collects information on children and teenagers under 17. Previous studies of sibling violence, which are few in number, have typically been small or narrowly focused on specific forms of aggression.

But the new research, conducted through interviews with children and their parents, measured the impact of a broad range of violence. It looked at physical assaults with and without weapons and the destruction or stealing of property, as well as threats, name-calling and other forms of psychological intimidation.

The researchers also measured the same types of behaviors perpetrated by peers outside the home and accounted for them in their findings in order to tease apart the specific toll of sibling violence.

Over all, a third of the children in the study reported being victimized by a brother or sister in the previous year, and their scores were higher on measures of anxiety, depression and anger.

Catherine Bradshaw, an expert on bullying and the deputy director of the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence at Johns Hopkins University, said the study was impressive in its scope and scale, and noted that it showed that all types of sibling aggression, from mild to severe, were associated with worse mental health.

“Parents at times might be thinking that their kids can fight it out or that a little bit of victimization might not be so bad,” she said. “But these findings suggest that the threshold is pretty low. It’s not just the rough stuff you have to keep an eye out for.”

Dr. Caffaro said that the effects of sibling abuse often continue into adulthood. Over the years he has treated patients who struggled with emotional issues and sabotaged themselves in their careers because of repeated humiliation they experienced at the hands of a brother or sister.

“It can erode their sense of identity and their self-esteem,” he said.

How university stopped me hating my face

Tags

anxiety, body dysmorphic disorder, obsessions

How university stopped me hating my face

Suffering from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) was like living trapped in a box lined with distorting mirrors. All I could see was my face, contorted and disgusting.

BDD is a form of obsessive compulsive disorder that affects around 1 in 200 people, according to the International OCD Foundation. Sufferers mistakenly believe an aspect of their appearance is deformed, which can drive them to undergo repeat plastic surgery procedures and, in some cases, even attempt suicide.

Five years ago, my disorder was at its height. I used to scratch at my face, or slap it, when looking in the mirror because I was so disgusted by my reflection. Now when I see myself I think I look fine – maybe pretty, certainly not hideous.

What brought about this change? Recovering from BDD is a long and ongoing process, made up of lots of small steps, but moving to university definitely made a huge difference.

If you are beautiful, everyone will love you forever and you’ll be perfectly happy. If you’re ugly, you’ll be hated and miserable. Clearly these assumptions are just plain wrong, but I believed them for years.

It wasn’t until year 12 that I first heard of BDD, and it took another six months for me to realise that I was suffering from it. The revelation that it was my mind (and not my face) that needed fixing marked a turning point. I started receiving counselling, doing more exercise, and making attempts to manage my anxiety. I began to feel like a different person…

But at school I was always shy, introverted and chronically lacking in confidence – it wasn’t easy to get people to notice that I’d changed. University was different. Being in a new environment, with new people, helped me leave my obsessions behind.

Battling against BDD, I felt like an electrician trying to rewire my short-circuiting brain. The same image-obsessed thoughts used to play on a loop in my head. Preoccupied only by my hideous appearance, my world was a very narrow place. But with moving away from home, that began to change.

My university has 240 societies for students to join – 240! Signing up to take on lots of new challenges inspired me to think differently. BDD can be self-perpetuating: the more you hate the way you look, the more you isolate yourself; the more you isolate yourself, the more time you have to dwell on your physical imperfections. Simply being busy helped me break the cycle.

“Think critically.” This maxim, hammered into my head by university professors, pushed me to reconsider my ideas about “beauty” and “body confidence”. At school I was always flicking through fashion magazines, eager to soak up their advice on how to be thinner, prettier and all-round better. But as I got older I started to lose faith in these glossy weeklies and their pages full of perfect, primped models.

In my first year, I made the decision to stop buying women’s magazines. I traded in Heat for books like The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. Suddenly, I started to see that some of my most deeply held beliefs (like the idea that beauty equals happiness) were just nonsense – and it felt pretty good.

Can BDD be permanently cured? I’m not convinced. When things are going well for me, I forget I ever suffered from it. But when my life isn’t running smoothly, I notice the obsessional thoughts and behaviours starting to creep back, so I know I can’t become complacent.

Thankfully there are a number of organisations that provide information and ongoing support for BDD sufferers, including the BDD Foundation and the OCD Foundation. Going to university has played an important part in my recovery from BDD by showing me just how many exciting opportunities the world has to offer. I want to focus on them, not my face.

ADHD: ‘I have a million things in my head at a time’

Tags

ADHD, adults

ADHD: ‘I have a million things in my head at a time’

Mention ADHD and most people think of (a) children and (b) trouble. But Steve Riley is one of a growing number of adults being diagnosed, and what’s more, he believes the behavioural condition actually enhances his life.

People who know Riley have long been used to the 38-year-old interrupting conversations to go off on weird tangents. But last October, his wife had finally had enough when, in a serious conversation about them moving home, he completely ignored her and wondered aloud if there was some poo on his shoe. Why, she despaired, couldn’t he focus, just for once.

For Steve, it was a light-bulb moment. “Perhaps, I suddenly thought, it’s not normal to joke about unrelated things in the middle of a conversation. And perhaps, it also occurred to me, it’s not normal to constantly lose my keys, forget things and bring the wrong things home from every shopping expedition – all things that I seemed to be doing more than ever.”

Riley explains that at any one time, he’ll be thinking of countless things at once, with his attention flitting from one to another involuntarily. “It’s a bit like sitting in front of a bank of TV screens all tuned to different channels. Conversely, sometimes the TVs all tune into the same channel and I become completely absorbed. So paradoxically, not only is it difficult to pay attention to one thing, but it can also often be difficult to shift your attention from one thing to another. This, I would learn, is what leads to the forgetfulness, lack of concentration, poor grasp of time passing and difficulties with prioritising tasks.”

It’s also what leads Riley to obsess about a particular thing such as a writer or film director, reading or watching their every piece of work for weeks on end, unable to think about much else. Another outcome is Riley’s love of loud rock music and cheesy action and horror films, packed with explosions and screaming.

No wonder that, within seconds of Googling his traits, the letters “ADHD” appeared on Riley’s computer screen. “Like most people, I’d always associated ADHD with children, but reading the list of symptoms was like reading a description of me. Tentatively, I put it to my wife, who is a speech and language therapist working with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Rather than saying, ‘Don’t be silly!’, she looked at me for a moment and said, ‘Yes, I think it would be a good idea for you to get checked out.'”

Less than six months later, Steve had a diagnosis. “The first health professional I saw, a locum GP, wasn’t convinced. He said I wouldn’t have been able to sit still for more than 30 seconds as a child if I had the condition. But that’s an outdated and incorrect view and thankfully not one that my own GP had. Instead, she went through a process whereby she eliminated other things that might cause the same symptoms, notably depression and an overactive thyroid gland, and then referred me to a psychiatrist, who focused on whether my symptoms affected me in all my environments and had done throughout childhood.”

Luckily, Riley still had his school reports. They all said the same thing – Steve is a clever kid, but forgets his work, doesn’t finish his homework and doesn’t concentrate.

The psychiatrist confirmed that this, along with his extreme disorganisation in childhood, is typical of ADHD sufferers. “One time, my primary school teacher upended my desk because he was cross about me sneaking something into it. I can still remember his face changing from anger to shock as he watched more and more stuff topple out – rubbish, work, bits of paper, you name it. It was like a comedy sketch.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, Riley failed his A levels and then got kicked off a college HND course. But after retaking A levels in subjects he really enjoyed, he passed and got an office job in the civil service. “But I got bored and so at 28, I did a degree in English literature to further my career. I passed and for the last seven years, I’ve been enjoying working as web editor for Relate.”

Not that Riley has been off the hook from his chaotic traits in this role. “In fact, as work has become busier, it’s got worse. I was increasingly going into meetings with my boss, realising there have been things on my to-do list for months.”

The diagnosis, which finally came last summer, has been a saviour, says Riley. “I now have confirmation that I’m not a lazy failure – I just have a brain that works in a different way. This has been very emotional and I’ve needed some counselling, but even that’s been positive because it’s helped me reassess the world as I’ve seen it for the past 38 years.”

The diagnosis also led to Riley gaining government-funded help to find strategies to deal with the more problematic areas – new ways of planning and preparing, wearing headphones to stop distraction, breaking down large tasks and so on.

But, and he doesn’t say this lightly, he wouldn’t be any other way. “The way my brain darts from one thing to another means I can make huge creative leaps. I come up with good ideas that other people don’t think of. For example, in a meeting, I might make a connection between something someone said 20 minutes ago. You could say I have a way of looking at the world that leads to me coming up with interesting, often unique, solutions.”

The way his attention and thoughts shift and jump can take him by surprise, too – often cracking him up. “Some of the best jokes come from making odd connections between things that shouldn’t connect and that comes so naturally to me that when I once did a comedy workshop that taught methods of writing comedy, I found I already made the kind of juxtapositions they were teaching.”

Riley adds that he is rarely bored. “A million things in my head keep me occupied at any one time.”

Andrea Bilbow, chief executive of the charity ADDISS (the National Attention Deficit Disorder Information & Support Service), isn’t surprised by Riley’s attitude. “There are lots of people who tell you it’s a gift and there’s some interesting research going on at the moment into ADHD’s links with creativity,” she says, pointing out that the comedian Rory Bremner believes he may have ADHD.

But, she adds, this can be a double-edged sword because ADHD can stop you from being successful with that creativity. “ADHD dramatically increases your likelihood of being out of work and even in trouble with the police, being on drugs and going to prison. It’s these negative factors that make it so essential that people get a diagnosis, whatever their age. After all, ADHD is a recognised disability for which you are entitled to get support. But sadly, diagnosis in adulthood remains uncommon because it’s expensive and unlikely if you don’t seek it out.”

Riley agrees that having ADHD has been anything but plain sailing. “But in my case, if I had a magic wand, I honestly wouldn’t get rid of it.”

Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

Tags

hikikomori, isolation, Japan, withdrawn

Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

As many as a million young people in Japan are thought to remain holed up in their homes – sometimes for decades at a time. Why?

For Hide, the problems started when he gave up school.

“I started to blame myself and my parents also blamed me for not going to school. The pressure started to build up,” he says.

“Then, gradually, I became afraid to go out and fearful of meeting people. And then I couldn’t get out of my house.”

Gradually, Hide relinquished all communication with friends and eventually, his parents. To avoid seeing them he slept through the day and sat up all night, watching TV.

“I had all kinds of negative emotions inside me,” he says. “The desire to go outside, anger towards society and my parents, sadness about having this condition, fear about what would happen in the future, and jealousy towards the people who were leading normal lives.”

Hide had become “withdrawn” or hikikomori.

In Japan, hikikomori, a term that’s also used to describe the young people who withdraw, is a word that everyone knows.

Tamaki Saito was a newly qualified psychiatrist when, in the early 1990s, he was struck by the number of parents who sought his help with children who had quit school and hidden themselves away for months and sometimes years at a time. These young people were often from middle-class families, they were almost always male, and the average age for their withdrawal was 15.

It might sound like straightforward teenage laziness. Why not stay in your room while your parents wait on you? But Saito says sufferers are paralysed by profound social fears.

“They are tormented in the mind,” he says. “They want to go out in the world, they want to make friends or lovers, but they can’t.”

Symptoms vary between patients. For some, violent outbursts alternate with infantile behaviour such as pawing at the mother’s body. Other patients might be obsessive, paranoid and depressed.

When Saito began his research, social withdrawal was not unknown, but it was treated by doctors as a symptom of other underlying problems rather than a pattern of behaviour requiring special treatment.

Since he drew attention to the phenomenon, it is thought the numbers of hikikomori have increased. A conservative estimate of the number of people now affected is 200,000, but a 2010 survey for the Japanese Cabinet Office came back with a much higher figure – 700,000. Since sufferers are by definition hidden away, Saito himself places the figure higher still, at around one million.

The average age of hikikomori also seems to have risen over the last two decades. Before it was 21 – now it is 32.

So why do they withdraw?

The trigger for a boy retreating to his bedroom might be comparatively slight – poor grades or a broken heart, for example – but the withdrawal itself can become a source of trauma. And powerful social forces can conspire to keep him there.

One such force is sekentei, a person’s reputation in the community and the pressure he or she feels to impress others. The longer hikikomori remain apart from society, the more aware they become of their social failure. They lose whatever self-esteem and confidence they had and the prospect of leaving home becomes ever more terrifying.

Parents are also conscious of their social standing and frequently wait for months before seeking professional help.

“I don’t want to talk to anybody. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t even have the will to pick up the phone. Just what am I supposed to do?” Welcome to NHK! was a novel, comic book and cartoon about the life of a hikikomori. Copyright Tatsuhiko Takimoto, Kendi Oiwa 2004

A second social factor is the amae – dependence – that characterises Japanese family relationships. Young women traditionally live with their parents until marriage, and men may never move out of the family home. Even though about half of hikikomori are violent towards their parents, for most families it would be unthinkable to throw them out.

But in exchange for decades of support for their children, parents expect them to show respect and fulfil their role in society of getting a job.

Matsu became hikikomori after he fell out with his parents about his career and university course.

“I was very well mentally, but my parents pushed me the way I didn’t want to go,” he says. “My father is an artist and he runs his own business – he wanted me to do the same.” But Matsu wanted to become a computer programmer in a large firm – one of corporate Japan’s army of “salarymen”.

“But my father said: ‘In the future there won’t be a society like that.’ He said: ‘Don’t become a salaryman.'”

Like many hikikomori, Matsu was the eldest son and felt the full weight of parental expectation. He grew furious when he saw his younger brother doing what he wanted. “I became violent and had to live separately from my family,” he says.

One way to interpret Matsu’s story is see him as being at the faultline of a cultural shift in Japan.

“Traditionally, Japanese psychology was thought to be group-oriented – Japanese people do not want to stand out in a group,” says Yuriko Suzuki, a psychologist at the National Institute for Mental Health in Tokyo. “But I think especially for the younger generation, they want more individualised or personalised care and attention. I think we are in a mixed state.”

But even hikikomori who desperately want to fulfil their parents’ plans for them may find themselves frustrated.

Andy Furlong, an academic at the University of Glasgow specialising in the transition from education to work, connects the growth of the hikikomori phenomenon with the popping of the 1980s “bubble economy” and the onset of Japan’s recession of the 1990s.

It was at this point that the conveyor belt of good school grades leading to good university places leading to jobs-for-life broke down. A generation of Japanese were faced with the insecurity of short-term, part-time work.

And it came with stigma, not sympathy.

Job-hopping Japanese were called “freeters” – a combination of the word “freelance” and the German word for “worker”, arbeiter. In political discussion, freeters were frequently bundled together with “neets” – an adopted British acronym meaning “not in education, employment or training”. Neets, freeters, hikikomori – these were ways of describing the good-for-nothing younger generation, parasites on the flagging Japanese economy. The older generation, who graduated and slotted into steady careers in the 1960s and 1970s, could not relate to them.

“The opportunities have changed fundamentally,” says Furlong. “I don’t think the families always know how to handle that.”

A common reaction is for parents to treat their recalcitrant son with anger, to lecture them and make them feel guilty for bringing shame on the family. The risk here is that – as with Hide – communication with parents may break down altogether. But some parents have been driven to extreme measures.

For a time one company operating in Nagoya could be hired by parents to burst into their children’s rooms, give them a big dressing down, and forcibly drag them away to a dormitory to learn the error of their ways.

Kazuhiko Saito, the director of the psychiatry department at Kohnodai Hospital in Chiba, says that sudden interventions – even by healthcare professionals – can prove disastrous.

“In many cases, the patient becomes violent towards the staff or the parents in front of the counsellors, or after the counsellors have left,” he says.

Kazuhiko Saito is in favour of healthcare professionals visiting hikikomori, but he says they must be fully briefed on the patient, who must know in advance that they are coming.

In any case, the do-nothing approach has been shown not to work. Tamaki Saito likens the hikikomori state to alcoholism, in that it is impossible to give up without a support network.

His approach is to begin with “reorganising” the relationship between the patient and his parents, arming desperate mothers and fathers with strategies to restart communication with their children. When the patient is well enough to come to the clinic in person he can be treated with drugs and therapy. Group therapy is a relatively new concept to Japanese psychology, but self-help groups have become a key way of drawing hikikomori into wider society.

For both Hide and Matsu, the journey to recovery was helped by visiting a charity-run youth club in Tokyo known as an ibasho – a safe place for visitors to start reintroducing themselves to society.

Both men have made progress in their relationships with their parents. Matsu has been for a job interview as a computer programmer, and Hide has a part-time job. He thinks that by starting to talk again with his parents, the whole family has been able to move on.

“They thought about their way of life in the past and in the future,” he says. “I think that before – even though they were out working – their mental attitude was just like a hikikomori, but now they’re more open and honest with themselves. So as their child I’m very happy to see them change.”

Many parents of hikikomori visit the ibasho even though their children may never be well enough to come with them.

Yoshiko’s son withdrew from society very gradually when he was 22.

At first he would go out to buy shopping, but she observes ruefully that internet shopping means this is no longer necessary and he no longer leaves the house. He is now 50 years old.

“I think my son is losing the power or desire to do what he wants to do,” she says. “Maybe he used to have something he wanted to do but I think I ruined it.”