"Hitomishiri" as a Japanese Concept of Stranger Anxiety and Anthropophobia

We have considered a feeling of “Hito-mishiri” and anthropophobia as a state of personal relations that is closely related to the special consciousness that one realizes oneself to belong to the inside or the outside circle, postulating that a feeling of shame underlies “Hitomishiri”. The statistical survey of the images over “Hitomishiri” revealed that double-structural characteristics is seen in a feeling of personal relations. In this connection anthropophobia and “Hitomishiri” were also discussed. “Hitomishiri”, however, should be considered in another aspects when it is felt in a certain personal relations; one of the aspects is a response to one's consciousness of others arising from one's awareness of own body. These two kinds of consciousness are two cooperative alternatives for the mental integrity; one's own consciousness corresponds to others‘, and in consequently both interact with each other as two cooperative alternative factors for the mental integrity in which, if one becomes conscious, others respond to it. Therefore, a feeling of “Hitomishiri” forms a pair with one's awareness of body, normally an unnoticed, neutral background for consciousness, which is obtained through one's sense that feels something from with in a certain physical state, as the relations of one in the inside to others in the outside circle is disclosed by the emotional disturbance in one's environs. It seems to be characteristic of hypochondriac trait, that it is initiated in the proess where one experiences a unpleasant, unstable feeling, and trys to exclude it because one always lives with pleasant, stable feelings with those who are in the same inside circle. For this reason, we should not ignore the historical background with regard to that a desire for self approval is controlled by the emotional, cultural conditions in Japan. It seems to be somewhat difficult at present to perform detailed analysis of “Hitomishiri,”“shame”, and anthropophobia, because there are few of comparative studies on them available. If we continue investigation of anthropophobia and orthopsiaphobia in the direction on as so far discussed, it will serve to make deeper analysis of these psychological disturbances that are popular in Japan.